Patraeus Sidelined by Unanimous Senate

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UPDATE:  A former member of Patraeus staff comments below the line.

Somewhat paraphrasing a senior Israeli leader of the late 1940s, speaking in reference to COL(USA-Ret) David Michael (Mickey) Marcus who had just given his life for Israeli independence, Dave Petraeus is, IMHO, the best man we have.  But, again IMHO, this is probably not a good match.  It is a political sidelining.  General Petraeus should be succeeding ADM Mullen as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Los Angeles Times
July 1, 2011
Pg. 12

Senate Confirms Petraeus For CIA

By Kathleen Hennessey

WASHINGTON — The Senate unanimously confirmed Army Gen. David. H. Petraeus as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, turning over the nation's intelligence operations to the man credited with turning back insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The nomination of Petraeus, the top commander of the war effort in Afghanistan, was approved on a 94-0 vote in a chamber that at times has been divided by his strategies.

Phi Beta Iota: Petraeus agreed to the job assuming CIA would have a substantive budget.  He is now outranked and outspent by Jim Clapper, and will soon find that virtually everything discovered in the “raid” on the Bin Laden compound, if not fabricated by CIA in the first place, had already been reported in open sources.  The lunacy continues.

Added 2 July 2011 from a former member of the very large Patreaus staff:

Have to put two cents into this…

1 cent:  I do not agree that he should succeed Mullen.  I do not think he should be DCI either.  He should be thoroughly looked at for his failure in Afghanistan.  Failure is the correct term.  He argued for COIN but
failed to implement the underlying concepts, rather he embarked on a counter-terrorism approach, killing the leadership (which doesn't work).  The statistics do not bear out that we are beating back the Taliban.  In
fact, according to NightWatch the best we can hope for is a stalemate, although we are seeing an increase in Taliban operations in areas other than South Afghanistan.  Have we stabilized Kandahar and Helmand
Provinces?  From my view the answer is NO.

2 cent:  He is not being sidelined, he is going to expand US operations under the CIA instead of the Military.  Who authorized UAV actions in Somalia?  They are being carried out by the CIA, a convenient way to
sidestep the War Powers Act.  David  Petraues has hamstrung the military in favor of a civilian force
outside the constraints of Government Oversight….now he will try to double-down (and make up for what he is shocked to discover is not the big budget he was hoping to play with).

 

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