Petraeus testimony provides fodder for candidates

WASHINGTON -- When Gen. David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill last year, the Iraqi insurgency was setting gruesome records for civilian casualties, putting the country on the brink of the civil war. At home, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton was soaring, considered the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and Arizona Sen. John McCain had fired his staff and downsized his campaign in what most observers thought was a sure end to his Republican presidential bid.

What a difference a year makes.

This morning, in the ornate Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, McCain, who has clinched the GOP nomination, and Clinton, now running second behind rival Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, questioned Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about how the military buildup of U.S. forces in last year's surge had changed the landscape and what lies ahead for U.S. policy in Iraq.

Clinton, who last year famously said that the predictions of success for the surge would take "a willing suspension of disbelief," focused on the failures of the Iraqi government to forge a reconciliation between Shia and Sunni citizens.

"The purpose of the surge was to create the space for the Iraqis ... to make significant political progress," she told Petraeus. "Halfway through the year, we still do not see sufficient progress."

Noting that the Bush administration "often talks about the costs of leaving Iraq ... while ignoring the greater costs of staying," Clinton said that she understood the "difficult dilemma" facing policy makers in figuring out how to extract U.S. forces from the region. If this were easy, we could all perhaps agree on the facts," she said.

But she added that in her view it was time to leave. "I think it's time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing our troops, start rebuilding our military, and focusing on the challenges posed by Afghanistan, the global terrorist groups and other problems that confront Americans," she said.

Obama, who gets his chance to question Petraeus and Crocker this afternoon when they testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, previewed his arguments in a morning interview on NBC's "Today Show."

"The American people, I think, have recognized that we have a legitimate national security interest in Iraq," he said. "They have been extraordinarily patient. Nobody has been more patient than the military families who are there. But at some point, we have to say to ourselves that the Iraqi government has to stand up and make the difference. And they have not done that."