Looney-Tunes Duo Prep Their Song & Dance

General Elmer Petraeus and Ambassador Bugs Crocker are practicing the tag-team razzle-dazzle they will use on Congress next week. The General is expected to suggest withdrawing a whole brigade from Iraq by next January, if all goes well. That’s 3500 soldiers out of the 320,ooo (counting the mercenaries which doubles the number of troops in Iraq) that Petraeus may (or may not) allow to come home. And that is if all goes well. The New York Times reported this morning that Petraeus is worried about “risk”: “Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, has told President Bush that he wants to maintain heightened troop levels in Iraq well into next year to reduce the risk of military setbacks.” A senior military official said, “General Petraeus is worried about risk, and all things being equal he’d like to keep as much as he could for as long as he could,” Well I guess so! General Petraeus is very worried about the fact that he has already risked his reputation by backing the asshole in the White House. And now that everyone knows the surge is an abject failure and that the civil war caused by the US occupation of Iraq cannot be contained, General Petraeus is worried sick about risking his already damaged reputation. It’s hard to know how Ryan Crocker plans to charm and impress Congress. Crocker lives in luxury in secure, protected and opulent ease in a lovely compound in Baghdad where he gives “nice-napkin” lunches to visiting dignitaries. What he could possibly say that would have any meaning as to the war in Iraq is a mystery. But no doubt both men will appear before Congress in sartorial splendor--General Fudd will be in his uniform with gleaming medals and stars. And Ambassador Bunny will wear an ensemble of low-key but expensive threads. And both men will risk EVERYTHING the Bush administration has given them.