Tom Perriello: "Petraeus is Half Right"

By: Lowell
Published On: 4/9/2008 3:02:19 PM

This sounds a lot like Jim Webb to me, and yes, that is a very good thing. :)  Go Tom!

Perriello: "Petraeus is Half Right"

April 9, 2008-Ivy, VA-In light of the testimonies by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Senate and House leaders, VA-05 congressional candidate Tom Perriello asserted that Americans are being offered a false choice in Iraq, and that the only solution there is a political one.

"Our generals have been winning battles but we are not winning the war because our political leaders have provided no plan for victory and ask the wrong questions. Gen. Petraeus is right that immediate withdrawal would be disastrous. But sticking with the Administration's current policy is just as dangerous. We owe it to our troops to provide a new path to victory, such as the N.E.W. Plan for Iraq I helped launch in 2006. We need to shift the debate from troop levels and timelines to a new political power-sharing arrangement that can anchor a manageable peace without a U.S. troop presence," said Perriello.

"The question is not whether the surge reduced violence. It is whether the surge moved the ball forward on solving the underlying political standoff that keeps us there. We need a solution, not a stalemate," said Perriello.

Perriello is a national security analyst who has worked in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Darfur on justice-based security solutions. He has been a fellow for the Century Foundation, consulted for the International Centre for Transitional Justice, and served as special advisor for the International Prosecutor of the war crimes tribunal in the showdown that forced the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor from power.


Comments



Petraeus Understands What Needs To Done (HisRoc - 4/9/2008 3:39:42 PM)
It's not that Patraeus doesn't know what is required in Iraq.  After all, he has a Ph.d in International Relations from Princeton.  The fact of the matter is that he is working his lane and letting the politicians work their's.  That came out in the Senate hearings yesterday when they nailed Amb. Crocker for not conducting a "diplomatic surge" to equal the military surge.

That has been a large part of the problem in Iraq all along--getting the State Department types to step up to the plate and swing.  Heck, they don't even have their A-team in Baghdah.  While our best combat units have been making multiple rotations into Iraq, the State Department had a mutiny amongst their career Foreign Service Officers when Foggy Bottom announced plans last winter to institute involuntary assignments to Baghdad.