Sour Grapes

Whose September report on Iraq?

Here are a couple of questions and answers from a White House press briefing on 1 Aug 2007 [full transcript]:

Q I'm asking how he [General Petraeus] can give an objective assessment of his own work.
MR. SNOW: Well, I think the first thing you ought to do is take a look again at the report that was filed to Congress, the interim reported July 15th—no sugarcoating there. You take a look—and they try to use real metrics on it. General Petraeus is a serious guy who sees his mission not as a political mission, but, in fact, as somebody who reports facts.
Now, let us keep in mind that the full burden of this report does not fall on his shoulders. A lot of the key judgments, especially about politics, will fall on Ambassador Crocker. So this is—although I know a lot of people talk about "the Petraeus report," in fact, you have a report that is a joint report by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. And so we trust him....
Q ...To what extent was the Vice President pre-writing the Petraeus report or setting expectations when he said he thinks it's going to show progress?
MR. SNOW: No, I don't think he's pre-writing it. Look, again, the one thing—if you talk to military guys, the last thing they want to do is get themselves embroiled in politics. What they try to do is to play it straight and to do it straight. And obviously the Vice President has his impressions based on what he's seen, but we're going to have to wait to see what General Petraeus has to report [emphasis added].

Now, according to a report on NPR, "the White House has indicated that it will write the report which Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker deliver to Congress..."

Needless to say, the difference between these two possibilities is huge.

Original post by Namenlosen Trinker at 8/22/2007 07:49:00 PM Eastern time :: 0 comment(s) ::

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