Lazy Gopher Pachyderm

It was never about oversight. It was never about listening to the Generals. All that talk about how Congress needed to act as a check to Bush’s Iraq policies and that he ignored the commanders was just political blather.

The Senate Foreign Relations committee voted near-unanimously in approving General Petraeus as head of the Iraq operations. He was very clear in his support for Bush’s plan of sending 20,000 additional troops; that the resolutions under consideration to the contrary would harm troop efforts and emboldened the enemy. In other words, more were likely to die if either the Biden or Warner resolutions were past. Here was the Senate’s true chance at providing Iraq oversight by rejecting the General that was fore-square in Bush’s tactical corner.

The Senators voted in favor of Petraeus.

Then they ignored everything he told them.

They voted 12-9 in favor a resolution stating everything that Petraeus warned against, a sense of the Senate bill that deeply criticized the Bush plan; a bill that would demonstrate that America was not behind the troops, that they did not, in reality, support them; a bill that would encourage the terrorists and insurgents that they just need to wait a little more, kill a little more, and the Great Satan would cower away from Iraq after suffering a little bloody nose.

# posted by Ricard : 9:23 PM