It was a week of appearances—from New York where fashion designers strutted their stuff on the catwalk, to Las Vegas where Britney Spears strutted her own stuff at the MTV awards, to Washington, D.C., where the top U.S. commander in Iraq gave his much anticipated testimony before Congress, and of course, where Bush addressed the nation Thursday night.
Not to make light of Miss Spears or fashion week, but we’ll focus on the D.C. appearances and the major highlights:
The General
For a man who barely moves his lips while he talks, General David Petraeus did plenty of gabbing this week on Capitol Hill, testifying before the House and Senate over two days and making the rounds on news programs. He even joked on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that some on his staff wouldn’t be too disappointed to head back to Iraq.
Major takeaways from his testimony before Congress about the state of Iraq:
- the troop surge is making a difference,
- sectarian violence is still a problem,
- the Iraqi government still needs to get its act together,
- and, most of all, the mission in is Iraq still worthwhile.
Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.
The President and the surge
For months the President has pleaded with Congress and the nation to wait to pin success or failure on his January decision to add 30,000 more troops in Iraq until Petraeus—and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq—could analyze the situation and report back. Now that they have, he says it’s time to begin pulling some troops out, starting in December and bringing back 21,500 by next summer.
The big picture
Democrats are crying foul, saying that returning the troops to about the pre-surge level isn’t enough; some want all the troops home right now, most want our involvement to end sooner rather than later. All in all, the week didn’t reveal anything terribly new—much of what Petraeus said was leaked to the media ahead of his testimony.
If nothing else, the week highlighted the many frustrations in the U.S. surrounding war. It also reminded us of how bleak the situation is in Iraq, how deep-rooted the sectarian violence is, and what a tough road lies ahead for the U.S. and Iraqi troops there.
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