Petraeus praise calls for a real simple, real obvious question

By Lee Russ

Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 04:39 PM

I've now listened to and read numerous comments from the president and his allies about the marvelous qualifications of General Petraeus, the new US commander in Iraq, and no one ever asks the most obvious question in the world.

The gist of these apparently coordinated comments is this: Petraeus is the THE most prominent & qualified antiterrorism/antiinsurgency authority in the entire US military--if anyone can "win" in Iraq, he's the guy. Said good old Republican Senator Mitch McConnell after Petraues was confirmed without a single nay vote: "He represents the best that our country has to offer and is our best chance for success...If it can't be done under General Petraeus, then it cannot be done at all."

But my dear Iraq apologists, if we assume this to be true, and we know that there has been an insurgency for several years, so.......

WHY THE F WAS PETRAEUS NOT IMMEDIATELY MADE THE US COMMANDER THE MOMENT WE RECOGNIZED AN INSURGENCY EXISTED?

It's like leaving your starting pitcher in the game three innings after he lost it, while the team goes from a tie score to being down by 10 runs, THEN bringing in your best relief pitcher.  He may, in fact, BE your best relief pitcher, but you're going to have a hell of a time trying to win the game now that you're down 10 runs.

And why, please tell me why just once no one in the media raised that question with Bush, Snow, et al.?  After all, if it's true, it kind of means that Bush and/or Rumsfeld was so negligent in their supervisory capacity that they should be criminally prosecuted.  How many people died while we had our supposedly best choice for commander doing something else, including, for a time, commanding an Airborne unit in Iraq?