Word: petraeus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...took three hearings before General David Petraeus finally got asked the most important question: Is the Iraq war, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee inquired at Tuesday afternoon's session, "making America safer?" Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was uncharacteristically uncertain. "Sir," he said, "I don't know, actually." For many watching, that answer was a stark indictment of the Bush Administration's conduct of the war over the past four years, and the logic behind it. It may also have been taken as a slap in the face by family members...
...more critical than Petraeus' unsettling answer was the questioner - G.O.P. Senator John Warner of Virginia, who recently announced his impending retirement after 30 years in the Senate. Earlier in his career, Warner had served as a Marine and as Navy secretary. While the courtly Virginian didn't react openly to Petraeus' answer, it plainly marked yet another demerit in the book of those lawmakers increasingly careful in weighing their support...
...actions speak louder than elegy, it tells you where we are that the team coverage on the eve of the sixth anniversary of 9/11 alternated between General Petraeus' performance on Capitol Hill and Britney Spears' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Osama returned to prime time, only to be mocked for his "impotence" and apparent need for Grecian Formula. A New Jersey community that lost 100 people that day has had to delay expansion of its memorial because fundraising fell short. September 11 falls once again on a Tuesday, we are six years away from the fire, and wondering...
...siding with the Sunnis now? It is a little startling that the Sunnis, whom the U.S. tossed from power in 2003, are being showcased by Washington as its favorite new allies. Bush and Petraeus have trumpeted the fact that Sunni insurgents in western Iraq who were once allied with al-Qaeda against the U.S. have joined forces with the Americans against the terrorists. These new alliances were in part the result of luck. Al-Qaeda violently overplayed its hand and started randomly killing Sunnis who refused to ally themselves with the terrorist organization. And in some places, America...
...Will troops start coming home? Petraeus is likely to recommend that troop levels remain constant at around 160,000 soldiers and Marines until April 2008, when a gradual redeployment will begin. The drawdown process will seem agonizingly slow, and that's because it will be - one 3,500-strong brigade and its supporting personnel a month. The timing is strategic and political. Pentagon personnel predict a massive drop in recruiting and retention in April if troops overseas aren't given long-promised breaks to go home. The political clock is ticking too. A partial springtime withdrawal would permit the White...