LOOK! A Straw! Quick! Grasp at it!!!

For your reading pleasure, two prominent wire services offer their take on a letter from General David Petraeus to the Troops serving in Iraq:

Reuters: Petraeus sees mixed security gains in Iraq: letter

Associated Press: Petraeus: Iraq buildup falls short

And here is the letter itself: Petraeus' Letter to the Troops.

You don't need my interpretation to grasp the sense of utter desperation. The left, and their media shills, will leave no stone unturned or unspun to cast the events of next week in the worst possible light.

Next week is gonna be a whole helluva lot of fun.

Blowback Redux

On August 22, in this post I wrote about how the upcoming administration report and congressional testimony by Crocker and Petraeus threatened to rip the Democrat party right down an ideological fault line.

The Democrats are properly terrified by the spectacle that is coming next week. General Petraeus--Scholar, Warrior, Patriot--is set to provide one of the most memorable congressional hearings in recent history. His testimony, and the report delivered by the Bush Administration one week from tomorrow, were required by language in a piece of legislation congressional Democrats insisted on when they passed the emergency supplemental.

At the time, no one on the left believed that a surge of troops could have had the effect that it has. This is due largely to the fact that none of the offensive operations made possible by the surge had begun yet. PL 110-28 was signed on May 25. Operation Phantom Thunder, the first offensive clearing operation began June 15. Give some credit to President Bush, who seems to have outmaneuvered Democrats again. It's likely that no one on the left knew what the brass at MNF-Iraq and CENTCOM had in store with those additional 30,000 troops, but some of them should have guessed. General Petraeus is a veteran combat commander(He took the 101st Airborne on the most aggressive, longest and most successful airborne armored assault in the unit's history, rolling through Iraq to Mosul in a breathtaking display of military brilliance).

The Democrats hadn't heard of Anbar Awakening yet. In late May, when they were crafting legislation requiring a series of reports they thought would ultimately humble the President and force a calamitous withdrawal from Iraq. They were doing it with the same mindset created by the Al-Askiriya Mosque Bombing and the year's worth of sectarian bloodshed that followed. It was hip to be anti-War. They had already jumped for joy in defeat and eagerly looked forward to hanging that defeat on Mr. Bush. That, they planned, would then be used to solidify and expand their majority in Congress and seat a Democrat in the White House in 2008.

But, a funnny thing happened on the way to that defeat. Our guys started kicking ass and taking names. Tribal Sheikhs started allying themselves with U.S. troops and fighting Al Qaeda side by side with our guys. The Sunni insurgency is now all but defeated. Al Qaeda is on the verge of a humiliating rout. Al-Sadr is caught between his own Scylla and Charybdes. And for the first time in Iraq's 16-month history, reconciliation is breaking out all over the place. There are even signs of reconciliation appearing at the national level.

Petraeus, Crocker and President Bush are going to explain all of that--in careful, pointed and incontravertible terms--next week.

Ahhh, the sweet smell of Blowback.

UPDATE: The Politico covers the fault line split I told you about last month. Next week is gonna be fun.

Commander In Chief

Just sayin' ...

President Assembles 'War Council' in Anbar Province

Armed Forces Press Service:

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President Assembles 'War Council' in Anbar ProvinceBy Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

Al ASAD AIRBASE, Iraq, Sept. 3, 2007 – President Bush has assembled his “war council” here in a surprise holiday weekend-meeting, at this remote airbase, in what is probably the group’s last meeting before the president makes his decision on next steps for U.S. involvement in the war.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. William Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker are all slated to meet with top Iraqi political leaders over the next several hours.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, and Massoud Barzani, president of the semiautonomous Kurdish region, are all slated to meet with the U.S. officials.

“This will be the last big gathering of the president’s top military advisors and the Iraqi leadership before the president makes a decision about the way forward,” said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary. “This is very much a decisional meeting. This meeting will put him [the president] much closer to making a decision, if he hasn’t already.”

The president and his top decision-makers traveled here to discuss progress in Iraq “face-to-face” with key leaders on the ground as he prepares his recommendations for the next steps in the theater, officials said.

The meeting comes days before Petraeus is scheduled to report before Congress on progress made here.

Gates did not address the press during the overnight flight, but a senior Defense Department official traveling with the secretary, speaking on background, told reporters the trip is all within the “context of making a decision” about future plans for Iraq.

“Nothing beats looking your commander in the eye … and saying ‘What do you think? What do we need to do? How’s this coming along?” the official said. “I think it’s instrumental to the decision process, for what the military recommendations are going to be, and the defense department’s recommendations are going to be to the president.”

The group is also slated to meet with local tribal leaders to discuss the recent surge of support for coalition forces in the region.

This is Gates’ second trip to this western-most province in Iraq that was once considered hopelessly lost to the insurgency. In recent months, though, tribal leaders and forces have begun siding with U.S. and Iraqi forces to repel al Qaeda in Iraq.

The official said Gates has read and heard military and media reports on the emergence of support for coalition forces in the former insurgent stronghold, but wanted to see the progress first-hand.

“This is an opportunity for him to get a perspective on it while he’s out there,” the official said. “These are other people that are reaching out to work with the coalition, work with the Iraqi government. And even though they are unofficial at this point, it’s important for all of us to hear what they have to say and recognize that they can be, and have been up to this point, a healthy part of stabilizing Anbar and other parts of western Baghdad.”

Gates is also slated to meet with about 700 Marines at the base during his visit. Nearly 35,000 Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen serve in Multinational Force West.

Al Asad Airbase is the second largest airbase in Iraq and is about 120 miles northwest of Baghdad.

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You have to love Mr. Bush's choice of locations. Anbar Province is a predominantly Sunni region. Nouri al-Maliki is a Shiite who has come under criticism for pursuing a sectarian agenda. Bush's choice both highlights the bottom up phenomenon of political reform and the desire of the U.S. to see a more conciliatory tone in Iraq.

DrewM at Ace of Spades HQ has this angle, too.

There could also be a security issue involved. Remember that last week, a C-130 carrying a Congressional delegation reportedly took AA or RPG fire as it left Baghdad International.