By Ryan Anderson, Win Without War
Yesterday's testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees left one vital question unanswered: whether the surge of U.S. forces is making things worse, not better in Iraq both militarily and politically.
With testimony last week by General William Odom (ret.) outlining the very serious danger of renting the loyalty of Sunni strongmen, and the lack of political reconciliation, there is significant evidence that the much touted progress in Iraq is only an illusion.
In a call to greater probity by our elected officials, Tom Andrews has posed these and other questions in an open letter to his former colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee.
Read Tom's letter on Huffington Post [1] to see what questions desperately need to be asked.
This morning, Tom will be interviewed for a podcast on Washington Post Online giving his analysis of the hearings so far. We will have a link to that on our website as soon as it's available - visit www.standupcongress.org [2] this afternoon for this and other breaking news on the Petraeus and Crocker hearings.
And this afternoon Tom will be meeting with key Senators and Representatives to follow up on today's events and discuss our opposition to supplemental war funding. As always, our best chance at preventing yet another $102.5 billion to fund endless war is for as many people to sign our Open Letter to Congress as possible. If you haven't already done so, sign the letter and forward this email to your friends and family encouraging them to join this important effort.