Is Pet cooking the books for the White House?

Question

GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US?

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there
was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect
of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do
everything we can to build on that progress.”

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General
claims a reduction in violence.

New York Times reports, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. E.G, deaths by car bombs don’t count.
Washington Post reports that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front.
Associated Press reports, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past 3 months than at anytime in the last 4 years.

SOURCE: Advert in New York Times

Answer 1

I dont' think Petraeus cooked the books, I think the books were already at a low simmer when the white house handlers gave him the report to read. He is just one more sacrificial talking head put out by white house to keep spouting their brand of 'truth'......

Answer 2

Here are some more details:

Yesterday, General David Petraeus misled the country.

He used faulty statistics and cherry-picked intelligence to argue that American troops should stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The general said we're making major progress—and we have to stay the course. Sadly, independent assessments show that things in Iraq have gone from bad to worse.

Petraeus based much of his assessment on the claim that violence in Iraq is dropping. That just isn't true:
Petraeus is using "funny math." According to the Washington Post, Petraeus and the Pentagon are using a bizarre formula for measuring violence in the country. For example, deaths by car bombs don't count. And assassinations count only if you're shot in the back of the head—not in the front.
Iraqis believe the surge has failed. According to a massive new ABC/BBC poll, every single Iraqi polled in Baghdad, the primary target of the "surge," said it had made security worse. Iraqis themselves overwhelmingly think the situation in Iraq is deteriorating, in terms of security, political cooperation, the economy, and other measures. Overall, 70% think the escalation worsened rather than improved security conditions. 5
The independent GAO report found that violence is up. A comprehensive Government Accountability Office report ordered by Congress found that "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007." In August, things got worse, with civilian casualties rising according to the Associated Press7 and the Los Angeles Times.
For our troops, it's the bloodiest summer yet. More U.S. troops died every month this year compared to the same month last year.
Petraeus claimed that he compiled his report without conferring with the White House. But the Washington Post recently reported that Petraeus or his staff joined daily conference calls with the White House and former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie this summer to "map out ways of selling the surge." The Post reported that Gillespie's White House political unit was "hard-wired" to Petraeus' military unit.

Respect,

Fraser

Answer 3

Right-wingers make a very steady (daily) diet of elephant dung and other assorted bile-spews of propaganda emanating 24-7 from Faux "news" and its hate-mongering affiliates. What a then-6-year-old young boy did at the request of his new stepdad in Indonesia was taste both snake and dog meat. So what? I've eaten snails, pickled pigs feet, and I eat cow and chicken as well. Can anyone who eats either bologna or hotdogs say they have never eaten something worse? When I lived in France, I learned that during WW2 many French people did eat dog meat when rations ran low. My granddad tried to get us kids to eat squirrel brains (YUCK!) still in their little skulls---I couldn't, but my older brother gave it a try. This type of tripe or trivia is a petty attempt by the far-right-wingers or GOP spin doctors to deflect public attention away from a GROWN and VERY WEALTHY MAN of 36 (Willard "Mitt" Romney) who inhumanely decided to strap his full-grown Irish setter's dog cage to the top of one of his family's many cars with the family pet (Sheamus) inside and to then take a 12 HOUR trip on the highway to Canada for a so-called family vacation. Enroute, the traumatized supposedly "beloved" pet developed diarrhea severe enough that the poop ran down the car's back window, to be witnessed by one of Romney's sons. In Romney's own words, "I stopped at a filling station and hosed things down." He then put the hosed down dog back into the hosed down cage and continued on his merry way. The evil of this event lies in the fact that Romney had no compassion or empathy for the large dog that he was supposed to "love" and also that he, a multi-billionaire at the time, could not have bought an RV or flown in a private plane or a larger vehicle or even arrange to have a second car driven by a chauffer---and also evil is that Romney has no sense of remorse for traumatizing the dog.

Answer 4

Like Enron, they simply changed their accounting method. Seriously, people, car bombs don't count in the new numbers!

Should we change accounting in the middle of a war? Remember they didn't want a new president in the middle of a war, how is it different?

Answer 5

You can key in your source----but I'd rather be able to read the article myself-----that way I get all the niuances and all the facts.

Answer 6

Yea, he's cooking the books and Bin Laden is the personal chef for nancy pelosi.

Answer 7

He has struck a deal with the devil, and finds it honorable to follow it through.

Answer 8

Congratulations your application for poster boy has been accepted! - moveon.org

Answer 9

In a word, YES.