Would-be presidents put Petraeus to the test

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - Testifying before two Senate committees Tuesday, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of American forces in Iraq, had something very ugly to deliver to the next president: responsibility for Iraq.

As it stands now, there’s a better-than-even chance that one of the Democrats who grilled Petraeus and envoy Ryan Crocker at Tuesday’s hearings — Sens. Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — will be commander-in-chief 15 months from today.

Iraq will be Clinton’s problem, or that of one of her Democratic presidential rivals.

Clinton, Dodd, Obama, and Biden bemoaned the state Iraq has fallen into and how the president’s decisions that contributed to that nasty outcome.

But there was not any one memorable campaign moment — the kind of moment you know you’ll see in a campaign ad — the confrontation when one of the would-be presidents caught the four-star general or the white-haired envoy in a devastating quandary.

In the evening, after eight hours of testimony by the general and the ambassador, Clinton got her chance to quiz them.

Not calling them liars, but ...
She told them their testimony required “a willing suspension of disbelief” — the phrase the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge used to describe the state of mind a reader of fiction or romantic poetry must have.

She wasn’t exactly calling them liars, but perhaps fiction writers.

MSNBC video McCain seeks answers from Petraeus, Crocker Sept. 11: Sen. John McCain questions Gen. David Petraeus and envoy Ryan Crocker about their efforts in Iraq. MSNBC

Maybe because she'd spent hours sitting listening to Petraeus testify in military techno-speak, Clinton's own language was filled with similar argot: She talked about “the metrics that have been referenced”  and the “advantages and disadvantages accruing post-surge.”

There was no flesh-and-blood anecdote to make it human.

Earlier Tuesday afternoon it was Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain who questioned the general and the envoy.

“Some argue that ethnic cleansing has already taken place” in Baghdad, McCain pointed out to Crocker.

“There clearly has been substantial displacement, mainly of Sunnis but also of Shia. And to be candid, there is still some of that going on,” admitted Crocker.

Then playing the devil's advocate, McCain asked “Why not just let it continue?”

Crocker replied, “To simply say, ‘this is a good thing’ would be, I think, in practical and moral terms roughly equivalent to some of the ethnic cleansing we saw in the Balkans.”

McCain got Crocker to admit, in sardonic diplomatic lingo, that his “level of confidence is under control” — which meant he didn’t have much confidence in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government.

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