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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (18195)	4/17/2008 5:30:21 PM
From: TARADO96	Respond to of 149317

General says Iraq 'starting to unravel' By Jeremy Wallace H-T POLITICAL WRITER Published Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 4:30 a.m. SARASOTA — A week after Gen. David Petraeus, commander of allied forces in Iraq, painted an optimistic picture of progress there, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey offered a much grimmer assessment to an audience here Wednesday night. The Iraqi government is dysfunctional, its military force is inadequate and the war itself is "starting to unravel," McCaffrey told about 180 people at the annual banquet of the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club. No matter who wins the White House in November, U.S. troops will begin coming home within three years, McCaffrey predicted. "We're not staying there much longer," said McCaffrey, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Clinton. It was a stark contrast to what Petraeus told Congress last week during two days of testimony. Petraeus said there had been progress in Iraq and that the U.S. should not withdraw troops early because "we have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it there." But McCaffrey, who visits Iraq annually, said that although the U.S. military is battle-hardened, the force has been stretched too far. Too many units are on their fourth or fifth combat deployment, he said. And recruiting has become so difficult, he said, that about 10 percent of the fighting force should not be in uniform. "The Army is too small," said McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Infantry Division in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. "This thing has run up against the edge. "The American people don't support this war," he said. "They think it's been mismanaged." His statements echoed a similar message he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 2, a week before Petraeus delivered his latest assessment of the progress of the war. McCaffrey, who retired as a four-star general, said Petraeus has done all that he can tactically on the ground, but it is the political will and military capability of the Iraqis that is the problem. McCaffrey also said the next president has to be leery of too much tough talk directed at Iran. Though that nation is clearly trying to develop nuclear weapons, McCaffrey said, the solution to the issue has to come through dialogue with Iran. "We don't want to threaten Iran militarily," said McCaffrey, who now runs his own consulting firm and is a military affairs analyst for NBC. "One of the things the next president has to do is to get in there and talk to them." The United States must try to build a coalition to confront Iran, including Sunni Arab nations that would be threatened by a nuclear Iran, he said. That includes countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He said the next president must try to wait out the Iranians, using economic and political tools, not the military. heraldtribune.com