Petraeus returns to war that is now his own

WASHINGTON — He sat absolutely still as members of Congress discussed his credibility and patriotism. His face did not twitch. He did not nod or frown or smile. Not a single muscle moved. He was as impassive as a boot-camp recruit resisting a drill sergeant's provocations.

Navigating the political shoals of Washington last week was a challenge unlike any Gen. David Petraeus has faced. At his Senate confirmation hearing in January, he was widely regarded as the quintessential military professional, a credible, independent voice who stood above the political fray.

But the general labored to retain that image when he returned to Capitol Hill last week for marathon hearings and a media blitz. Partisans tried to portray him either as a politicized officer carrying water for the White House or as the savior of an unpopular war.

The Iraq war has diminished the reputations of many generals. As Petraeus returns to Baghdad to continue carrying out President Bush's strategy, his image has changed as well. Like it or not, he has become a political player, and more than ever, the U.S. venture in Iraq has become his own.

"Up until this week, it was Rumsfeld's war," said retired Army Lt. Col. James Jay Carafano, referring to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Now, for better or worse, it's Dave's war."

Petraeus appears to be adjusting. "I've tried to spend the last 33 years going around minefields instead of through them," he said wryly at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

His first order of business in a joint House hearing Monday was to emphasize that his long-awaited testimony had not been vetted by the administration. And publicly, at least, he took no notice of the MoveOn.org newspaper ad dubbing him "General Betray Us," just as he disregarded White House and Republican efforts to paint him as a martyr to left-wing smears.

His testimony bolstered Bush's position in the debate over the future of the war and gave Republicans political relief by recommending withdrawal of more than 20,000 troops by next summer. Yet he did not toe the White House line completely, resisting efforts to portray Iraq as part of the war on terror or predict that al-Qaida will take over if U.S. forces pull out. Asked whether fighting in Iraq makes Americans safer, as Bush argues, Petraeus said, "I don't know."

Petraeus, who holds a doctorate from Princeton, is no political naif, and he emerged with even Democrats praising his professionalism. Yet he now is the symbol of a deeply unpopular war and, to critics, his generation's Gen. William Westmoreland.

"He's more charismatic, to be sure, but he is exactly in the same position Westy was in in 1967 when he tried to make the case to Congress that victory was achievable in Vietnam," said Michael Desch, of the Brent Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University.

Petraeus has assumed a higher profile than his predecessors in large part because of the White House. After Bush announced his troop buildup in January, he made Petraeus its public face, continually referring to "the Petraeus plan," although the general did not develop it. The reason: Petraeus had more credibility than the president. After earning Senate confirmation as Iraq commander without dissent, the White House had him lobby lawmakers for Bush's troop-increase strategy.

Anti-war activists and some Democrats eventually turned on Petraeus. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., questioned the accuracy of the general's statements in June. But Democrats also made him the man to answer for the war by mandating that he report to Congress in September.

Petraeus held a powerful public image going into the hearings, with 52 percent of Americans polled by Gallup and USA Today reporting a favorable impression and 17 percent saying they had an unfavorable view. Still, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 53 percent of respondents thought Petraeus would use his report to make things look better than they are.

MoveOn's ad cited reports questioning the methodology of statistics Petraeus was citing to argue that security had improved in Iraq, accusing him of "cooking the books for the White House." But congressional Democrats recoiled. "We needed to stay away from General Petraeus and focus on making this Bush's war," a Senate Democratic leadership aide said.

Still, Republicans considered the MoveOn ad a political boon. "The general was made a political piñata, and I don't think it worked," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Eli Pariser, MoveOn's executive director, said Petraeus was fair game. "If you have a general who is being willfully misleading to the public and the Congress about the state of a military endeavor, that's a big problem," he said.

Other war skeptics picked up on the credibility question. An online column Wednesday by Tom Engelhardt, a fellow at the Nation Institute, called Petraeus "the Paris Hilton of generals" — that is, "a vain media darling with almost no credibility." Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," summarized Petraeus' testimony as meaning that "the president's been right the whole time."

The politics of the war have been particularly hard on generals. Before the conflict began, Gen. Eric Shinseki, then Army chief of staff, found himself at odds with the administration when he publicly questioned the size of the proposed occupation force. Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the invasion, was criticized by some in the military as too deferential to Rumsfeld's demands to trim the invading force further, and later for retiring as an insurgency was brewing. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the next commander, presided over a deepening war and the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal. Sanchez was followed by Gen. George Casey, recently depicted as pursuing a failed policy seeking to pass security responsibilities to unprepared Iraqi forces.

But until now, most criticism of generals has involved judgments.

"The personal attacks on General Petraeus were way over the top," said Michael Noonan, a defense scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an Army Reserve officer who served in Iraq. "In many ways, this was worse than the Swift boat attacks because the target is an active-duty military officer."