Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Daily News
September 16, 2008
Pg. 24
Always would he defer to the battlefield counsel of his military commanders, President Bush assured the nation again and again, for they were the ones who were doing the fighting in this long and dreary slog of a war.
And so he did. Until he concluded he no longer had much confidence in that counsel — given that, after all, the war was going badly on their watch and that sometimes even his Joint Chiefs of Staff were as eager to bug out of the Iraq morass as were any of the cut-and-run armchair generals on Capitol Hill.
Thus, as Bush cleaned his house of the brass hats he no longer trusted, did Gen. David Petraeus enter the pages of history, to preside over the 2007 troop surge that Bush demanded over the protests of those who were sure it could not succeed.
But it did. Despite the fact that, at least per Bob Woodward’s fresh reportage, Petraeus had to fight tooth and nail with his own chain of command, that an exasperated Bush finally resorted to communicating with him via back channels, looping out the Joint Chiefs altogether.
Today, meanwhile, Petraeus, will hand off Iraq to his No. 2, Gen. Ray Odierno, and take the reins of U.S. Central Command, overseeing operations not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and the entire Middle East.
He’ll have his hands full. And he’ll have battlefield counsel to offer. To the next President.
September 16, 2008
Pg. 24
Always would he defer to the battlefield counsel of his military commanders, President Bush assured the nation again and again, for they were the ones who were doing the fighting in this long and dreary slog of a war.
And so he did. Until he concluded he no longer had much confidence in that counsel — given that, after all, the war was going badly on their watch and that sometimes even his Joint Chiefs of Staff were as eager to bug out of the Iraq morass as were any of the cut-and-run armchair generals on Capitol Hill.
Thus, as Bush cleaned his house of the brass hats he no longer trusted, did Gen. David Petraeus enter the pages of history, to preside over the 2007 troop surge that Bush demanded over the protests of those who were sure it could not succeed.
But it did. Despite the fact that, at least per Bob Woodward’s fresh reportage, Petraeus had to fight tooth and nail with his own chain of command, that an exasperated Bush finally resorted to communicating with him via back channels, looping out the Joint Chiefs altogether.
Today, meanwhile, Petraeus, will hand off Iraq to his No. 2, Gen. Ray Odierno, and take the reins of U.S. Central Command, overseeing operations not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and the entire Middle East.
He’ll have his hands full. And he’ll have battlefield counsel to offer. To the next President.