Petraeus’s PR mission accomplished

The General’s testimony painted a predictably rosy picture, writes alexander cockburn

Blend a war and a presidential campaign and you have a recipe for 200 per cent mendacity, as the Petraeus hearings this week triumphantly proved.

Take the war first. Into the witness chair in the Senate chamber marched General Petraeus, the blaze of ribbons on his chest suggesting actual combat experience somewhat longer than the modest four years his record discloses. He was once shot in the chest, it's true, but that was in a military exercise in the US when a soldier's gun went off by accident.

Somewhat mechanically, the general read through a testimony freshly vetted and re-written by Vice President Cheney, a man well aware that, despite the utter absence of any supportive evidence and owing much to his own untiring falsehoods on the matter, 33 per cent of all Americans, including 40 per cent of Republicans and 27 per cent of

He spoke glowingly of his ‘surge’, marching senators through graphs and flow charts that spelled out Order and Progress

Democrats, believe Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks.

Hence Petraeus's testimony had a reference in almost every paragraph to al-Qaeda terror groups in Iraq, even though prudent estimates put total al-Qaeda membership in Iraq at 850, thus furnishing some 5 per cent of the Sunni resistance.

The general spoke glowingly of his 'surge'. He marched the senators through graphs and flow charts, whose soaring curves and bars spelled out Order and Progress, just like the Brazilian national flag.

In fact, it's hard to demonstrate there's ever really been a surge. Right now the US military presence is at a high point, with 162,000 troops in Iraq. But that's not far above the 160,000 deployment level at the end of 2005. Moreover, there's been a steady decline in the 'coalition of the willing', which now stands at 11,500, falling at an average of 575 a month.

General Petraeus loosed off volleys of bogus numbers and the senatorial candidates