Thoughts on the Petraeus testimony

Yesterday's hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee was a somber experience but started off on a light note. When several of us arrived at 2 p.m. to begin the hearing, we found, much to our surprise, that the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was still going on, long beyond the expected adjournment time. John McCain and I stood in the back of the chamber waiting for the Committee to conclude. As we listened to our colleague, John made the universal sign for talking too much with his hand. Unbeknownst to us, The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd saw the gesture and mentioned it in her column today.

That was, of course, the only light moment prior to a very serious hearing with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. I listened intently to their presentations, which I believe represented their forthright assessments of the war. When my turn came to question them, I quoted the General's statement that the fundamental cause of the violence in Iraq was a struggle for power and resources among the sectarian factions. I also quoted his assessment at his nomination hearing that a political component was necessary, and I noted the lack of action by Iraqi leaders to achieve political reconciliation. "What should we do if, a year from now, the Iraqis still have not made political progress?," I asked. I questioned how long we should continue to commit American troops, American lives, and American treasure if the Iraqis are not doing their part.

Much as I respect General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, I did not think that they had any good answer to that question.

While I welcome the fact that as many as 30,000 troops will be returning home over the next 10 months, the Administration's plan will leave us with as many troops in Iraq 10 months from now as we had 10 months ago. I believe that we need to change the mission of our troops to allow a significant but responsible drawdown of our forces. Today, I talked with several of my colleagues about how we might achieve that goal.