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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / Shenanigans

Shenanigans

by Tim F|  April 17, 20082:57 pm| 14 Comments

This post is in: War

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This is interesting.

Petraeus carefully dodged a question from Sen. Hillary Clinton about what resources he was planning to deploy to Basra and over what length of time.

Clinton evidently suspected that the plan envisioned the deployment of U.S. troops on a large scale in the Shiite south, despite the fact that the Iraqi government is supposed to be responsible for security there. Petraeus responded vaguely that it was “a phased plan over the course of a number of months during which different actions were going to be pursued.”

[…] When Vice President Dick Cheney, who had previously played the “bad cop” in the George W. Bush administration’s relations with al-Maliki, visited Baghdad in mid-March, one of his objectives was to get al-Maliki to go along with the Petraeus plan to eliminate the commanding position of Sadr’s forces in Basra. Al-Maliki has told Iraqi officials that Cheney put pressure on him to go along with the Basra operation, according one Iraqi source.

[…] The Cheney visit apparently mobilised al-Maliki, but not in the way Cheney had intended.

Four days later, when Petraeus met with al-Maliki’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie to talk about the U.S. campaign plan for Basra, al-Rubaie warned Petraeus that al-Maliki had a different plan. Petraeus was apparently told that the operation would last from a week to 10 days — not the several months envisioned in the Petraeus plan.

A major, bloody offensive would make a great prop for bashing Democrats with. The public would obviously hate seeing more kids die, but it takes a kind of Democrat that we don’t have to go on promising withdrawal in the middle of a pitched battle. In the current political climate a shooting battle, even one that we’re losing (maybe especially one that we’re losing) could do wonders for a hawkish Republican candidate.

And when would that battle take place? The story said that Petraeus planned to begin around mid-summer. It also said that the operation would take a few months. Mid-summer, plus a few months, puts us in…October. Surprise!

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Previous Post: « Hillary Was In Her Element
Next Post: While We’re Talking About Basra »

Reader Interactions

14Comments

  1. 1.

    Dennis - SGMM

    April 17, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Petraeus has many MacArthurs in him.

  2. 2.

    Zifnab

    April 17, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    Petraeus has many MacArthurs in him.

    I don’t think he can invade China from here… thank god… but he’s close enough to Iran. How did McArthur’s Presidential Run go, anyway?

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    April 17, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    Zifnab Says:

    Petraeus has many MacArthurs in him.

    I don’t think he can invade China from here… thank god… but he’s close enough to Iran. How did McArthur’s Presidential Run go, anyway?

    It never passed that commander-in-chief threshold.

  4. 4.

    peach flavored shampoo

    April 17, 2008 at 3:57 pm

    I’m beginning to think that Petraeus is nothing but an extension of the Bush Administration. He has long since generaled in a manner that guarentees success for his troops; instead, he seems to command only in a manner that most helps the GOP.

    What a sick fucking POS, if true. Our men die needlessly so the GOP can get a few more votes.

  5. 5.

    Evinfuilt

    April 17, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    Come on Petraeus could never have expected the US to actually go through with Democratic Elections.

  6. 6.

    wobbly

    April 17, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    Oh, the totally despicable big-assed bitch…

    …also known as the second term senator from the State of New York…actually asked the very intelligent General a very intelligent question…so intelligent that he had to dodge it???

    So intelligent that even YOU are thinking about what she said and he said…

    Please revise your Clinton derangement syndrome. This is a woman totally informed, and comfortable, with asking tough questions about places where people die…

    Even places where she and her husband messed up.

  7. 7.

    Tim F.

    April 17, 2008 at 4:54 pm

    Please revise your Clinton derangement syndrome.

    I’m not John. If you read through you will notice that I have posted very little on the nomination and almost nothing on Hillary. In my view she has already lost and therefore just isn’t very interesting. If she somehow wins I will vote for her; John probably won’t.

  8. 8.

    Dennis - SGMM

    April 17, 2008 at 4:59 pm

    Oh, the totally despicable big-assed bitch…

    Yes.

  9. 9.

    4tehlulz

    April 17, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    >>This is a woman totally informed, and comfortable, with asking tough questions about places where people die…

    And yet she voted for Kyl-Lieberman anyway.

  10. 10.

    Dennis - SGMM

    April 17, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    This is a woman totally informed, and comfortable…

    Who maintains that she was misled by George W Bush. Thank the Sweet Baby Jesus that there’s no one smarter than George W Bush in world politics lest she be misled again.

  11. 11.

    Cassidy

    April 17, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    Please revise your Clinton derangement syndrome. This is a woman totally informed, and comfortable, with asking tough questions about places where people die…

    Yes, all those tough questions before authorizing the war were helpful. What was her respsonse to why she voted for that again?

  12. 12.

    Zifnab

    April 17, 2008 at 6:01 pm

    Yes, all those tough questions before authorizing the war were helpful. What was her respsonse to why she voted for that again?

    Cause they want to kill us?

  13. 13.

    maxbaer (not the original)

    April 17, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    al-Rubaie warned Petraeus that al-Maliki had a different plan. Petraeus was apparently told that the operation would last from a week to 10 days—not the several months envisioned in the Petraeus plan.

    I wondered where Rummy had gone. What is cakewalk in Arabic?

  14. 14.

    Enlightened Layperson

    April 17, 2008 at 7:06 pm

    I wondered where Rummy had gone. What is cakewalk in Arabic?

    The point here, I think, is that Maliki, in saying he could defeat the Mahdi Army in a week to 10 days was not being Rumsfeld; he was deliberately blowing the attempt. I always wondered how he could have believed something so totally insane. The answer being offered here is that he didn’t; he was deliberately failing in order to thwart a planned US offensive. I don’t really understand how deliberately failing would stop the US, though.

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