20070910 Petraeus Doesnt Cook the Books Just the facts by Michael O’Hanlon

NRO (Michael O’Hanlon – Brookings): Petraeus Doesn’t Cook the Books Just the facts.

September 10, 2007 6:00 AM

Petraeus Doesn’t Cook the Books

Just the facts.

By Michael O'Hanlon

(See related: 20070730 NYTimes Op-Ed: A War We Just Might Win by O’Hanlon and Pollack and 20070910 The General Petraeus New York Times Ad)

For those reading this after watching General David Petraeus’s Monday testimony, I strongly suspect that my main argument will have become apparent to many: General Petraeus is a straight shooter who does not and will not cook the books.

From what we know of his thinking already, Petraeus will talk of significant military momentum for combined U.S./Iraqi forces. But this momentum will be placed in the context of a still very lethal and dangerous battlefield. Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, will also highlight the absence of Iraqi political progress, progress without which our long-term aspirations for that country will almost surely fail. He will have enough evidence to back up this claim of military momentum, on the plus side, combined with ongoing extreme danger on the streets and political paralysis in the halls of parliament on the other side, that his argument will sound right to most who hear it. And while he will surely favor continuing the effort, he will not present the evidence about Iraq in a way that attempts to invalidate the judgment of those who would disagree. War opponents will be able to accept most of the specific evidence he presents yet retain their positions that a rapid and large-scale American withdrawal from Iraq is warranted. That is because, in the end, our decisions about Iraq must be based more on a judgment call about politics and human psychology than on hard science or data.

On the violence, in keeping with a Saturday New York Times article by Michael Gordon that reflects current DoD data on the country, Petraeus will argue that the overall situation has improved substantially this year. He will be right to do so, based on virtually any primary-source data I have seen (in my capacity as co-author of Brookings’s “Iraq Index”).

Be sure to read the entire piece here: Petraeus Doesn’t Cook the Books Just the facts.