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Surge Achieving Military Goals, Petraeus Says

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By KAREN DeYOUNG and THOMAS E. RICKS, The Washington Post

Published: September 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - If Gen. David Petraeus has his way, tens of thousands of U.S. troops will be in Iraq for years.

Iraq's armed forces are improving, Petraeus told Congress on Monday. Overall violence is down. Sunnis are turning against al-Qaida in Iraq, and many Baghdad neighborhoods are more peaceful.
Political reconciliation is a now-visible light at the end of the tunnel, said Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who testified beside the general. The men offered no clear pathway or timeline to reach the end.

Petraeus and Crocker have long complained that Washington's clock - with congressional demands that the time has come for Iraqis to take over their security and reconcile their political differences - is running far faster than the one in Baghdad. Monday, they tried to slow Washington down.

'The process will not be quick,' Crocker emphasized. 'It will be uneven, punctuated by setbacks as well as achievements, and it will require substantial U.S. resolve and commitment. There will be no single moment at which we can claim victory; any turning point will likely only be recognized in retrospect.'

Judging by the relatively mild congressional reaction in a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, Petraeus and Crocker may well succeed this week in deflecting Democratic demands to bring the troops home sooner rather than later.

They are likely to face tougher questioning - and stiffer challenges to the emerging trends they described - from two Senate committees today.

Some Democrats sought to challenge the general. 'The administration has sent you here today to convince Congress ... that victory is at hand,' Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said in an opening statement. 'With all due respect,' Lantos told Petraeus, 'I don't buy it.'

Others invoked the Vietnam War, a historical analogy that Bush has recently used to make his case in favor of the Iraq war.

'Twenty years from now, when we build the Iraq war memorial on the National Mall, how many more men and women will have been sacrificed to protect our so-called credibility?' asked Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton. 'How many more names will be added to the wall before we admit it is time to leave? How many more names, general?'

'The enemy ... did not count on the United States regaining the initiative and going on the offensive throughout this strategy behind the surge,' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami. 'This strategy has driven a wedge between al-Qaida and the Sunni population, and that will help drive a similar wedge between the Shia extremists.'

Petraeus said he has recommended to Bush that one Marine unit in Iraq leave soon and one of 20 Army brigades depart near Christmas and not be replaced.

Next, Petraeus said, he will endorse sending home another five brigades by next summer, which would return U.S. forces to the pre-'surge' level of about 130,000.

He said it is too early to recommend longer-term reductions, telling lawmakers he will not be ready to propose any further cutbacks until sometime next year, probably in March.

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