Biden, Kerry attack Petraeus

This today from the AP:

President Bush's war strategy is failing and the top military commander in Iraq is "dead flat wrong" for warning against major changes, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday.

Ahead of two days of crucial testimony by Bush's leading military and political advisers on Iraq, Sen. Joseph Biden indicated that he and other Democrats would persist in efforts to set target dates for bringing troops home.

"The reality is that although there's been some mild security progress, there is in fact no security in Baghdad or Anbar province where I was dealing with the most serious problem, sectarian violence," said Biden, a 2008 presidential candidate who recently returned from Iraq.

A few days in Iraq and decades in the U. S. Senate: that's all Biden needs to be able to tell the military commander in Iraq what's really going on there and call him "dead flat wrong."

The AP continues:

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were scheduled to testify before four congressional committees, including Biden's, on Monday and Tuesday. Lawmakers will hear how the commander and the diplomat assess progress in Iraq and offer recommendations about the course of war strategy.

Officials familiar with their thinking told The Associated Press over the weekend that the advisers would urge Congress not to make significant changes. Their report will note that while national political progress has been disappointing, security gains in local areas have shown promise, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.[...]

But why do we have to listen to General Petraeus when Democrat Biden is telling us what's what in Iraq?

If anyone has any doubt about Biden being right, the AP says Senator John Kerry agrees with Biden:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., agreed. "The problem is, if you don't have a deadline and you don't require something of the Iraqis, they're simply going to use our presence as cover for their willingness to delay, which is what they have done month after month after month," he said.

"I think the general will present the facts with respect to the statistics and the tactical successes or situations as he sees them," Kerry said. "But none of us should be fooled — not the American people, not you in the media, not us in Congress — we should not be fooled into this tactical success debate."

So John Kerry doesn't want us to be fooled by General Petreaus? He wants us to listen to him and Biden and ignore what Petraeus says.

Now, if Petraeus were to say he favored an immediate pullout from Iraq, I'll bet Biden, Kerry and most other Dems would tell us we needed to listen to the General.

Folks, I hope Biden, Kerry, and other Dems aren't fooling any of you. They have an Iraq agenda and they don't want any General or an improving military situation in Iraq getting in the way of "the script" they're preparing for the '08 election campaign.

The entire AP article is here.