Petraeus/Odierno to the Hill; Ackerman to the Laptop « The Washington Independent

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In written answers to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will testify today, Petraeus said the possibility of military action against Iran should be retained as a “last resort.” But he said the United States “should make every effort to engage by use of the whole of government, developing further leverage rather than simply targeting discrete threats.” …

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Asked to assess conditions and potential actions in Afghanistan, where U.S. and other NATOtroops are battling the Taliban, and in the tribal regions of Pakistan where al-Qaeda’s leadership is based, Petraeus said he could not devote full attention to those areas until he assumed his new command.

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Petraeus’s answers on Iraq reiterated much of his testimony last month. Asked what he thought were the “most significant mistakes the U.S. has made” in Iraq, his lengthy list included: erroneous prewar assumptions; a misplaced emphasis on early elections that resulted in “hardened sectarian positions”; slow adjustment of U.S. strategy to security challenges; failure to recognize the negative impact of the Iraqi government’s slow political reconciliation; and U.S. misconduct at Abu Ghraiband elsewhere that “inflamed the insurgency and damaged the credibility of Coalition Forces in Iraq, in the region, and around the world.”