Obama, as suspected, disregarded the Afghan troop drawdown recommendation of Gen. Petraeus
Testifying before a Senate committee today, the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan confirmed under oath what many had suspected:
In his speech Wednesday evening, President Obama disregarded the preferred troop drawdown choice of his top general, David Petraeus, now headed to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama clearly appeared to be paying attention to the anti-war left wing of his party and to war-weariness reflected in polls after a 10-year conflict that began when he was a mere state senator.
Obama was in Manhattan again tonight for a series of Democratic fundraisers, including one with TV hostess Whoopi Goldberg, with the June 30 first-quarter reporting deadline approaching.
The widely-admired four-star general was the architect of the successful Iraq troop surge that Obama also opposed as a U.S. senator but that has now enabled him to drastically reduce U.S. forces there.
The 58-year-old Petraeus couched his committee answers in the standard Washington etiquette acknowledging civilian control of an obedient military.
However, his forthright replies rapidly reverberated across the Capitol, where so many in the political business are so ready to believe that the accelerated troop withdrawals were ordered by the Democrat more to enhance his troubled reelection plans, than because they would enhance the cause of crushing terrorist forces in Afghanistan.