McClatchy: After two days, no answer to 'how this ends'

[babylonsister]

After two days, no answer to 'how this ends'
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2007


WASHINGTON — They sat behind burgundy-covered witness tables for more than 16 hours of testimony and answered hundreds of questions about the Iraq war, some of them pointed, some of them softballs.

But there was one question that Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, couldn't, or wouldn't, answer.

It was the question that Petraeus himself posed rhetorically back in 2003 when he led the Army's 101st Airborne Division into Iraq: "Tell me how this ends."

Much to the frustration of the senators — mostly Democrats, but including a few Republicans — who grilled them Tuesday, neither the general nor the diplomat outlined a strategy for putting Iraq back together or a timetable for bringing U.S. troops home.

Four and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — and four years after some Pentagon officials thought American troops would be home in triumph — two days of breathlessly anticipated testimony by Petraeus and Crocker appear to have produced another stalemate in Washington.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19632.html

[groovedaddy]

1. Because as long as U.S. troops are there, it won't end

simple enough?

[tridim]

2. It ends when Bush, Cheney and the Military Industrial Complex have all of our money.

That's the only conclusion I can draw from the past two days.

[ThomWV]

3. One Correction - They weren't asked 100s of questions, they were asked about 50 questions 3 times

Many of the questions asked by one committee had already been asked by a preceeding committee. In each case the same non-answer was provided.

[Sagan]

4. Military Industrial complex doesn't WANT it to end...

So it's going to be damn hard to end it.