Gen. Petraeus' credibility is in serious question for a number of reasons. You can read more here and here about how he has cherry-picked statistics to represent to Congress (where have I seen that before?). You can read his political op-ed in favor of the Iraq War, and by implication George W. Bush, right before the 2004 election here.

By the way, note he was saying how great Iraq was going three years ago, just as he is today. He was wrong then and he's wrong now.

There are even reports out that he might run for president in 2012 as a Republican. And according to the Washington Post, he has been coordinating every single day with the political arm of the White House to sell the surge. He is one of the least independent generals we have ever had.

According to reports, even his commanding officer called him "an ass-kissing little chickenshit."

By the way, speaking of his commanding officer, how come we haven't seen Admiral William Fallon, head of US Central Command talk about the surge when we are theoretically hearing from commanders on the ground? That's because by all accounts, Admiral Fallon disagrees with the surge, so George Bush is not interested in hearing from him. And more importantly, wants to make sure we don't hear from him. You can find out more about more about Admiral Fallon's views here.

But the deception that I have the most trouble with is how General Petraeus has continually linked our success in the Anbar province to the surge when he knows for a fact that the two are completely unrelated. Our strategy in Anbar was originally called the Ramadi strategy and began in August 2006 - well before the surge.

Look at what Time magazine wrote in December, 2006 - before the surge started:

It's a dilemma familiar to counterinsurgency strategists: much of the fighting in Ramadi and other places continues because of the American presence, not in spite of it. U.S. commanders tasked with clearing Ramadi, the latest insurgent hub in Anbar Province, aren't looking to assault the city with U.S. troops. They want local security forces instead to retake the city gradually. And in recent months a group of tribal leaders in Anbar Province has been working with U.S. forces in that effort, forming a coalition of sheiks who have sent hundreds of their followers to join the Ramadi police force as well as the Iraqi army.

The Ramadi strategy, which in essence replaces U.S. troops with Iraqis even as the fight unfolds, shows some early signs of success.

This strategy was started by Army Col. Sean MacFarland as documented by this USA Today story from months ago. Is it conceivable that Gen. Petraeus wouldn't know the origin of our strategy in Anbar? If he claims not to remember, that would be an Alberto Gonzales like claim to incompetence and mismanagement. But of course, in reality, we all know that he knows.

Instead of giving the commander serving under him credit, Petraeus took the credit for himself and George Bush. And he pretended it had to do with their so-called surge strategy. Classy.

My guess is that they will do the same thing with what Lt. Col. Patrick Frank has started with the Mahdi Army (to be fair to others, there are many other diplomats and commanders also involved with this new gambit). Both strategies involve co-opting local sects and militias so that we need fewer troops to fight them, not more. But that won't stop Petraeus and Bush from claiming the exact opposite. Man, did that Orwell guy nail it?

These commanders under Petraeus should be given a ton of credit for coming up with innovative ways of negotiating with former enemies and turning them into possible allies (is Dick Cheney listening - it turns out negotiating with your enemies can be a good idea, especially if you want to stop fighting with them at some point).

There are a lot of pitfalls to these strategies and they have not yet finished the job obviously. But they're much better than anything else we have had to date (and they are an actual shift in strategy, as opposed to military tactics that don't address the underlying problems). Is it any surprise that they are already yielding much better results than George Bush's brilliant strategies of "stay the course" and escalation?

In the final analysis, after seeing General Petraeus mislead Congress about the numbers in Iraq, about the so-called success of the surge and the grossly misleading testimony about the Anbar province, I have no faith in him as an independent judge of what's happening in Iraq. I think he actively misled Congress and the country, and more of our troops will die while the General and the President try to defend their record and their ego.

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