General Petraeus and President BushBush Gave Petraeus Back-Channel Support
-- Washington Times
-- Washington Times
President Bush delivered a back-channel message of personal support to Gen. David Petraeus when the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq felt undermined late in 2007 by a lack of support from the Pentagon, State Department and his own military superiors, a new book says.
Gen. Petraeus believed any further troop reductions in Iraq should be contingent on reductions in violence. But he was under intense pressure from those above him to reduce the U.S. troop presence as soon as possible, according to "The War Within: A Secret White House History," by Bob Woodward.
President Bush supported Gen. Petraeus, but did it through a back channel, without telling almost anyone.
Mr. Bush went outside the chain of command and delivered a message of support to Gen. Petraeus through a retired Army officer, Gen. Jack Keane.
"I waited over three years for a successful strategy. And I'm not giving up on it prematurely," Mr. Bush said, in a message relayed by Gen. Keane to Gen. Petraeus, just after Gen. Petraeus' two days of testimony on Sept. 11 and 12, 2007.
"I want Dave to know that I want him to win He will have as much force as he needs for as long as he needs it."
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My Comment: The politics of the Iraq Surge can be summarized into the following ..... General Petraeus, The Pentagon, Joint Chiefs Of Staff, the National Security Adviser, State Department, mid level officers in the field, the media, Congress, the Senate, political opponents, political supporters, think tanks, interest groups, advisory groups .... and I an not even taking into consideration the Iraqi side of this equation.
I am not a blind supporter of President Bush, but if he pulls this off .... and it looks like he will .... this period of American History will be studied for years as a successful venture on the part of the American Presidency and the use of his political office and the instruments of government and the military.
1 comment:
This period of history will be studied for decades, but not as a measure of success. From start to finish, Bush has mismanaged and fumbled foreign policy and managed to nearly break the military as an institution. The only thing that kept this war going was Bush's willingness to spend billions of dollars a month and to use attrition-type tactics to wear down the insurgency. If we still have 140,000 troops in theater in January 2009, then by default he has not "pulled this off."
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