McClatchy: Petraeus: 'We are not trying to mislead'

[babylonsister]

Petraeus: 'We are not trying to mislead'
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Friday, September 14, 2007


WASHINGTON — Despite President Bush's pledge Thursday that U.S. troops will remain in Iraq after he leaves office, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, said Friday that he will still use the prospect of troop withdrawals to persuade Iraq's political leaders to resolve their differences.

In a half-hour interview Friday with McClatchy Newspapers at the Pentagon, Petraeus said the message that he and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker will take back to Baghdad is: "Let's get on with it (or) you are going to have to take it on by yourself."

Iraq's leaders know the drawdown is going to happen, Petraeus said.

He said that Bush's assertion in his nationally televised speech that "ordinary life is beginning to return" to Baghdad "is "probably true in a number of areas." He cited three neighborhoods, Adhamiyah, Kadhemiya and Ghazaliyah, as success stories.

"It still needs to return in others," he added.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19752.html

[Vilis Veritas]

1. Right....

Petraeus, said Friday that he will still use the prospect of troop withdrawals to persuade Iraq's political leaders to resolve their differences.

That will work, sssuuuuurrrreeee....Perhaps, he is going to take Bush and threaten them with a hand shaking photo op?

Might just work...