September 11, 2007

Liveblogging The Senate Iraq Report Hearing

1:59. John McCain and Susan Collins are filing in for the Armed Services hearing. C-SPAN expects this round to last about as long. Good lord -- forget the sandwich Biden advised, gets these gentlemen an IV. We're going to follow the Armed Services hearing in a new post, and will only report anything new-ish that happens there.

1:56. Biden wrapping up. He lays praise on them before concluding that without details on the final drawdown, there's nothing new here. Good bet many of his fellow panelists feel the same way.

1:53. Happily, he closes with a question nearly everyone in the military wants answered re the deployment schedule. In case anyone's forgotten, the rationale for staying in Iraq seems to have gotten gradually farther away from a national self-interest; meanwhile, American troops are serving repeat and longer tours with less time at home.

1:49. Jim Webb, the Virginia freshman who's one of the most influential voices on defense in the Senate, wants "specificity." He also sits on Armed Services, so we don't know why he used almost all his allotted time to make a statement instead of asking questions.

1:45. Petraeus says just because an ISF unit hasn't achieved Operational Readiness Assessment Level 1 status as defined in the benchmarks, which means it is capable of operating independently, doesn't mean it isn't capable of operating independently, "if that makes sense to you." Sorry, general, it kind of doesn't.

1:42. Casey comes the closest to saying outright what many of his colleagues are thinking: We respect you, but we just don't believe you.

1:38. Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. asks about the NIE's assessment that the Iraqi Security Forces aren't capable of independently carrying out operations. Glass-half-full from Petraeus.

1:31. Louisiana Republican David Vitter is up. Petraeus and Crocker are due before the Senate Armed Services Committee in less than half an hour. Someone get these gentlemen a PowerBar.

1:22. Speaking for the Bush administration is Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who previously indicated he might turn on the war if the Iraqi government didn't make political inroads by this week. It would not be surprising if other skeptical Republicans followed suit based on the more positive assessments of the surge we're seeing from Petraeus.

1:12. Menendez: Pretend I'm Bush and tell me how long we're going to be there. Petraeus, who isn't a moron, doesn't bite.

1:06. Petraeus quickly takes issue with Bob Menendez's conclusion that the current strategy amounts to refereeing an ethnic rivalry for power and resources.

1:01. Noteworthy that no one so far has attacked Petraeus or Crocker as some Democratic representatives did yesterday. Jim DeMint is taking the glass-half-full approach, not a great surprise from the South Carolina Republican and a possible preview of renewed GOP support for the war.

12:56. Crocker gives a sort-of answer. If violence worsens, if the performance of Iraqi forces does not improve, we'll have done all we can do, he seems to be saying without actually saying it. That's all pretty intuitive, but it's something, considering the White House refuses to address any scenario other than an outcome it won't define but continues to call "success."

12:54. A great and obvious question from the freshman senator. At what point do we say "enough," pack up and go home? Nobody in the White House will address this, but aren't Petraeus and Crocker obligated to here?

12:51. Again with the "kicking A-S-S." Is saying the phrase "kicking ass" against the Senate rules or something? Maybe a better yardstick is if POTUS says it, we can all say it.

12:49. Illinois Democrat Barack Obama, one of three presidential contenders on this panel, has picked up on and isn't happy with the moving of the goal posts in Iraq.

12:43. Murkowski wants to know if the overall mission of the U.S. is ultimately dependent on Iraqis, which is another way of phrasing what's been said numerous times since yesterday. Petraeus points to Fallujah, where 10 police precincts are being effective in "population control" among the "gated communities" there. Again, hard to see how we get to a unity government if separating and walling off the combative factions in Iraq is proving the most tactically effective from a security standpoint.

12:38. And we're back. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is up.

12:29. Five-minute break. Thank you, Senator Biden. Dear NASA: Please send space diapers soon. XOXO, The Gate.

12:27. Crocker: We haven't seen signs Iran is being at all helpful, but "I am not prepared to say this channel is not worth pursuing."

12:21. Democrat Bill Nelson: "Can Iraq be stabilized without political reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites?"

"No, sir."

One would think the hearing ought to end right then and there.

12:18. Are Iraq's watchdog and oversight mechanisms working? "To a degree," Crocker says.

12:10. Boxer is fast and furious with the quotes. First, with a warning Petraeus issued a while back on the dangers of being perceived as occupiers, and second, on Bush's "kicking A-S-S" -- as she puts it -- comment. She points out that 28 soldiers have been killed since Bush made the quip six days ago. She's trying to make a point, not ask a question, leaving Petraeus and Crocker no choice but to sit back and take it.

12:07. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wants the world to like us again and also to follow Britain out of Iraq.

12:04. What happens if you cut the umbilical cord between us and Iraq? The Iraqis are "keenly aware" that the U.S. could announce a withdrawal at any time, Crocker says. "I would be concerned that an approach that says we're going to start pulling troops regardless of the objective conditions on the ground and what might happen as a consequence of that would make them less likely to compromise," Crocker said, adding that they just might stock up and prepare "for a big, nasty streetfight without us around."

11:55. "We're all quite concerned" about al-Qaida's presence on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, says Crocker, formerly the ambassador to Pakistan. Feingold asks which is more important, the Iraq war or the war on al-Qaida. In fairness, Crocker's and Petraeus' purview is Iraq, and both say so. Then Feingold asks another unanswerable question about when U.S. troop deaths will decline.

11:49. The first invocation of today's 9/11 anniversary, courtesy of Russell Feingold.

11:44. Crocker says to keep an eye on growing rejection of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi army.

11:39. Republican Norm Coleman is asking for "objective measures" by which to grade progress in Iraq. In other words, he isn't content to just take Petraeus' and Crocker's word that improvement is afoot.

"Benchmarks go two ways in my view as a potential misleading indicator," Crocker says. "I believe the Iraqis could hit all the benchmarks and still not achieve national reconciliation." He's stressing "processes" over benchmarks -- a tough sell in the results-oriented halls of Congress.

11:32. Neither Petraeus nor Crocker seem to have done a convincing job of directly tying so-called bottom-up gains to the overall problem of ethnosectarian conflict. Biden interjects and asks Petraeus if what happened in Anbar didn't just amount to a deal with the U.S. military to keep the Shiite-dominated National Police out. Petraeus portrays Anbar's self-policing as an example of "local control." That doesn't exactly answer the question of how the National Police, which received an F in the independent report released last week, can be effective if distrustful Sunnis are allowed to circumvent it.

11:27. Can anyone say I Told You So louder than '04 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry? Last year in Iraq was disastrous by all measures, which is why we have the surge in the first place.

Kerry asks Crocker what the leverage is to get Iraqis moving on the political front, particularly since Petraeus has spelled out the U.S. drawdown. Crocker responds that the prospect of reconstruction and redevelopment is compelling Iraqis to reject extremism and move toward reconciliation.

11:17. In a way, Crocker and Petraeus are using Iraq's sorry state -- arguably a result of myopic post-war planning -- to make their case. Iraqis are sick of unemployment, sewage overflows, limited electricity and dirty water. More importantly, they are sick of daily body counts, which is why they're turning against al-Qaida in Iraq. Give them time, and Iraqis will learn out of necessity how to cooperate with one another.

11:13. Crocker acknowledges that Iraq's dysfunction is "beyond question," but contends Iraqis are realizing that their infighting isn't working for them, which is forcing them to cooperate. Another "give us more time" plea.

11:04. Hagel: Of course there's security improvement, we "flooded the zone" with troops. Good point. For those gains to last, Iraqis need to buy into the concept of national unity, which they seem to do in theory so long as whatever tribe or faction they're loyal to has more power than the others. Hagel concludes that the central government is totally dysfunctional, and in that sense the surge has failed.

11:03. Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel: Forget Iraqi reconciliation -- how about reconciling all these conflicting U.S. reports?

10:54. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., is up, and he's talking about the U.S. military's whack-a-mole problem. He, and others on this panel, don't see the military's gains as lasting, and they view national reconciliation as more or less hopeless. It doesn't look as if Petraeus and Crocker are going to win any Democratic converts to the surge.

10:51. Crocker again points to the Iraqis' "internal process" of deliberating the issues facing them. The problem is while we know little about that process, we do know there aren't a lot of results.

10:46. Lugar just brought up that Hunt Oil deal with the Kurds. "The Other Iraq" is impatient with Baghdad and wants to use its relative stability to start growing its economy. Iraqi lawmakers have yet to pass an oil law, but Baghdad is now saying the new deal is illegal. Lugar's point: What's the holdup? Crocker: It's going to take time.

10:43. Another theme: lowering expectations. The war's backers initially envisioned post-war Iraq as a democratic, pro-Western oasis in the Middle East. Bush, by the way, still seems to hope for that. The message here is we're all going to have to settle for something less.

10:39. Biden: Hey guys, remember that time my helicopter was grounded around Baghdad, and we were too terrified to get to our destination on the ground? He really loves this analogy.

10:35. That earlier thought is assuming Congress sanctions Petraeus' recommendations, of course. That depends on if Senate Republicans choose not to defect on the war; it isn't clear yet how the report is affecting the fence-sitters.

10:30. Petraeus is just not going to talk about how to proceed beyond next summer when troop levels will be back down to pre-surge. Bush openly admits that his successor will inherit this war; voters really do need to put on their thinking caps and imagine the White House '08 candidates as commander in chief.

10:28. We're watching on C-SPAN3, by the way. Is anyone else wondering if MSNBC's rebroadcast of its original 9/11 coverage amounts to terror porn? Discuss.

10:18. He repeats a stat showing ethnosectarian violence is down 80 percent. He needs to show that this trend a) isn't just because of prior ethnic cleansing, and b) that it can hold in Baghdad province, which remains mixed largely because of the heightened number of U.S. troops on the ground, in order to convince Biden and the other surge skeptics. It's not clear that he can; these hearings thematically boil down to asking Congress to take the White House's long-term Iraq strategy on faith.

10:16. Petraeus is up. He finds the need to once again state that neither the White House nor Pentagon vetted his testimony, clearly a reaction to that MoveOn ad. Docuticker has all his charts and graphs.

10:09. Crocker acknowledges the great sacrifices made by American men and women in this war, but asks for "more time and patience" to realize its gains. That seems to be the overall theme here and will probably put congressional Democrats in a real bind. A rapid withdrawal, he says, promises "massive human suffering" and fertile ground for Iran's probably nefarious ambitions. Can lawmakers live with that?

10:05. Crocker projects 6-percent growth in Iraq's economy for FY07. He's laying out details on the U.N.'s, P-5's [its five permanent members] and G-8's meetings with Iraqi leaders. In other words, the diplomatic surge is under way, Senator Biden.

9:53. Ambassador Crocker: The trajectory of political progress in Iraq is upward, but not steep. Is that good enough for Biden and co.? Probably not.

Crocker is a highly respected career diplomat, so let's not assume he's just spinning for the White House here. He is reiterating his basic thesis from yesterday, which is: Iraq is undergoing "a revolution" that stands to dramatically alter the landscape of that country. Sunnis and Shiites have never had to share power before; it will take them time to figure it out. "I do believe Iraq's leaders have the will to tackle Iraq's pressing problems, although it will take longer than we anticipated," he says. In that sense, this report and series of hearings really are about buying more time, since the surge hasn't achieved its stated objective as originally defined by President Bush. Once again, the terms in which we're to think about this war are changing.

9:46. Interesting stuff from ranking Republican Richard Lugar, another war skeptic. The Iraq report is a milestone in and of itself, and so far there is "not enough to alter the basic fault lines of the Iraq debate." Since neither Petraeus nor Crocker advocate any fundamental changes in the current strategy -- as compared with analysts at GAO and CSIS -- what are we all doing here? Lugar also doesn't seem confident in Iraqis' ability to form a unified government.

9:42. Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., opens the hearing with a challenge: Prove to us that the military gains can last beyond the U.S. military's presence in Iraq, and prove to us that Sunnis and Shiites are willing to stop killing each other. Petraeus' and Crocker's assessments of the "surge" are really just their interpretation of the situation on the ground; as everyone well knows, the data we have re violence is pretty open to various interpretations. As for the lingering sectarian conflicts -- both Petraeus and Crocker acknowledge we're not in a great place when it comes to reconciliation.

Biden's assessment is that no, the surge hasn't worked, and no, reconciliation is too far out on the horizon. He advocates partitioning of Iraq, and is calling now for a "diplomatic surge" involving the U.N. and Iraq's neighbors. He tells Petraeus and Crocker that their justification for the war -- that conditions in Iraq will worsen if we're not there -- isn't good enough for the American people. For about two-thirds of the public, that is accurate.

9:30. Welcome to The Gate's liveblog coverage of Gen. David Petraeus' and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that Petraeus' and Crocker's joint House hearing performance yesterday will force both parties to recalibrate their positions on the Iraq war. That's probably right: The new strategy on offer has something for everyone. We will see a gradual withdrawal, starting this December, which will bring troop levels back down to the pre-surge 130,000 or so. But that was expected -- it's widely believed that the military literally cannot withstand its heavier footprint in Iraq beyond next spring. So, one way to view the report is to see it as staying the course. Another way is to view it as the exit strategy everyone's been waiting for.

Expect the questions to be more pointed and more intense today. But don't be surprised to see the overall level of politeness we saw yesterday, since Democrats are somewhat on the defensive thanks to that MoveOn ad. Off we go.

-JANE ROH

Posted at 2:00 PM
Posted to: Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Christopher Dodd, David Petraeus, Democrats, Iraq, Joseph Biden, Middle East, Military, President Bush, WH 2008