Good heavens! You mean Petraeus would actually fake a showplace in Iraq so he could show the gullible and the Kool-Aid drinkers visiting dignitaries around, so they’d go home all happy, make speeches on The Hill, and say “It’s Surgalicious”? Say it’s not so! Say Petraeus isn’t just another loyal Bushie! Sadly, he is, and it’s so. WaPo does some actual reporting:

Nearly every week, American generals and politicians visit Combat Outpost Gator, nestled behind a towering blast wall in the Dora market. … Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military leadercommander* in Iraq, frequently cites the market as a sign of progress.

Visits to key U.S. bases and neighborhoods in and around Baghdad show that recent improvements are sometimes tenuous, temporary, even illusory.

Even U.S. soldiers assigned to protect Petraeus’s showcase remain skeptical. “Personally, I think it’s a false representation,” Campbell* said, referring to the portrayal of the Dora market as an emblem of the surge’s success. “But what can I say? I’m just doing my job and don’t ask questions.”

Bingo.  Read more 

Offered without comment:

Gen. Petraeus and a High-Profile Suicide in Iraq
Col. Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar, put a bullet in his head in Iraq after reporting widespread corruption. His suicide note — complaining about human rights abuses and other crimes — was addressed to his two commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, now leader of the U.S. “surge” effort in Iraq. It urged them to “Reevaluate yourselves….You are not what you think you are and I know it.”

By Greg Mitchell

(March 14, 2007) — The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious, and seriously underreported, problem, as this column has observed numerous times in the past three years. One of the few high-profile cases involved a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing.

A portrait of Westhusing written by T. Christian Miller for the Los Angeles Times in November 2005 (which I covered at the time) revealed that Westhusing, before putting a bullet through his head, had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis.  Read more