After reading several articles on the subject, it seems pretty clear that somebody has been talking to the press about soon to be CIA Director David Petraeus and how he might try to influence the CIA's assessment of the war in Afghanistan.
David Howell Petraeus retired from the U.S. Army last week as a four-star general and will be sworn in as Director of the CIA today.
Can Petraeus handle the CIA’s skepticism on Afghanistan?
When David Petraeus takes over as CIA director next week, he will confront a tricky problem: CIA analysts who will be working for him concluded in a recent assessment that the war in Afghanistan is heading toward a “stalemate” — a view with which Petraeus disagrees.
At CIA, Petraeus taking up top spy post
Admirers and detractors alike are waiting to see whether the retired four-star general will use his influence with the media and Capitol Hill to pursue policies opposed by White House officials who disagreed with him over the course of the Afghan war.
Intelligence officials worry that Petraeus will pressure CIA analysts to change their assessment of the war.
One current and one former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, say the most recent CIA assessment predicts a grim stalemate in fighting with the Taliban.
From July, 2010 to July, 2011 Petraeus served as Commander of the US forces in Afghanistan. From October, 2008 to June, 2010 Petraeus served in an even higher position as Commander of the US Central Command, which includes the war in Afghanistan. So essentially, Petraeus has had ownership of the war in Afghanistan for the past three years.
The war in Afghanistan is very much part of his legacy. The agency he is about to lead has a negative assessment of that war. Petraeus says that he has no political ambitions for the presidency but Hillary Clinton used to say the same thing, if I remember correctly. Even if he has no political ambitions, what general wants to be remembered as the American general who was responsible for a long, failed war in the graveyard of empires?
On his farewell tour, Petraeus issued strong warnings about staying the course, against winding down this war, against changing the strategy and cuts to the military. In fact, his advice and warning seem to contradict the things that President Obama told the country about the Afghan war when he announced the beginning of withdrawals scheduled for this summer.
Just look at this New York Times article from last week, by the well known tool named Elisabeth Bumiller. (An aside: Her husband works for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, yes, the same Peter G. Peterson whose mission in life is to privatize and pillage Social Security).
Petraeus Retires, With a Warning
WASHINGTON — An era in the American military came to an end on Wednesday when David H. Petraeus, the most influential general of his generation, retired with a 17-gun salute and a warning that coming budget cuts should not lead to the “hollow Army” that occurred after the Vietnam War.
Just 11 days before the 10th anniversary of Al Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington, General Petraeus also implicitly cautioned that the United States should not abandon the troop-intensive and expensive counterinsurgency doctrine that was his hallmark when he commanded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The general spoke as the Obama White House is shifting from a broad counterinsurgency strategy of trying to build roads, schools and good government in Afghanistan to a narrower and more secretive counterterrorism mission of hunting down terrorists.
(Emphasis added)
What? My understanding is that the shift to a "more secretive counterterrorism mission" was to be carried out by the CIA, the very organization that Petraeus is taking over. Something doesn't add up.
9/11 Anniversary: Shadow Army of CIA, Special Ops Drives Counterrorism
As counterterrorism has become the preeminent goal, the military has relied increasingly on covert operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency or by an array of secretive forces designated broadly as Special Operations. That shift has introduced a new model of warfare, one that is characterized by unmanned drone strikes or targeted missions that occur outside of public awareness and often without explicit Congressional approval.
[ ... ]
CIA director David Petraeus, who formerly commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, underscored in his Senate confirmation hearings how the military's operations and the CIA's operations have become intertwined -- something also attested to by his own transition.
[ ... ]
Since Sept. 11, the CIA has undergone a sweeping transformation. While the organization has always struck a balance between intelligence gathering and field operations, killing terrorists has taken on an outsize role. [ ... ] "We're seeing the CIA turn into more of a paramilitary organization without the oversight and accountability that we traditionally expect of the military," Hina Shamsi, the director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Post.
An anonymous former CIA official was more blunt, saying the agency's metamorphasis has been "nothing short of a wonderment" as it became "one hell of a killing machine."
(Emphasis added)
The American public has no stomach for this very long war anymore. There is no doubt about that.
In June:
According to the latest ABC news polling, 73 percent of Americans say the United States should withdraw a substantial number of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan this summer.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
The President did a prime time address to the nation just two months ago saying that 10,000 troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of the year and the rest of his surge troops (23,000) would leave by August, 2012.
After months of review, the president's plan outlines the withdrawal all of the 33,000 "surge" troops that he deployed in December 2009, and committed to begin withdrawing in July.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
The Mendacity of Hope: Why We Need to Leave Afghanistan
Will Keola Thomas – Afghanistan Study Group
From “Col. YYY,” described by former Air Force officer and Dept. of Defense military analyst Chuck Spinney as, “an active duty colonel who travels all over Afghanistan…This colonel, unlike many of his peers, actually goes on foot patrols with troops to see things for himself.” The anonymous colonel’s letter is a must read:
“The mendacity is getting so egregious that I am fast losing the ability to remain quiet; these yarns of ‘significant progress’ are being covered up by the blood and limbs of hundreds – HUNDREDS – of American uniformed service members each and every month, and you know the rest of this summer is going to see the peak of that bloodshed.
…
It’s sheer madness…”
That is just one of many, many similar stories about the situation in Afghanistan.
Obama tells the country we are drawing down. Petraeus says that we must keep going with the troop-intensive war and also talks up the new model of warfare as he takes control of the organization that is instrumental in the covert component of the new model. How much power does this guy have? Is he trying to have both a conventional military and the new model military in Afghanistan? That doesn't seem to make much sense.
Is Obama being honest with the nation about his plans for Afghanistan? People who are involved or in the know, some of them described as intelligence officials, are worried that Petraeus will force a new assessment of the war that he and his legacy are invested in, and they are talking to the press about it. The story is all over the news, including the Washington Post, so is the White House in favor of this story getting out too?
Are Obama and Petraeus on the same page? If not, why the heck did Obama appoint him to this role?