Gen. Patraeus Goes to Washington Part Deux: "The Charts"

April 8, 2008

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Well this morning/afternoon Senate hearings did not disappoint, nor surprise many of us who sat for hours watching the often times continuation of last Septembers argument there were certain aspects that stood out as somewhat “telling” signs of what the situation is in Iraq, beneath the layers of shine and rhetoric added onto it by politicians and pundits alike. Noah Schactman at wired.com actually got a hold of the slideshow and Petraus’s prepared comments and that is where I found the one slide that really stuck out like a sore thumb (Click to Enlarge):

Shactman has a very astute observation when he points out that given all that’s gone down in Basra over the last two weeks or so, is it really fair to say that the province is under “Iraqi control”? As in, Iraqi government control? I for one don’t think so, actually I don’t even think it’s an argument, it’s more or less a false statement all together.

If you would like to view the slides and statement in full, which I really urge you to take a second and do, you can do so here: the charts (pdf) accompanying Petraus’ full prepared statement (pdf).

They are surely going to receive as much scrutiny as any military release in recent memory, and I have a hunch that slides like the one above are only the first to trickle out of the entire Petraus package as being tell tale signs that this debacle in Iraq in in fact not working.