A different voice didn’t seem to change any minds in Congress

WASHINGTON - The general with the Ivy League degrees came to Capitol Hill on Monday afternoon, like a lawyer with weak evidence hoping to win over the jury with a masterly closing argument.

Gen. David Petraeus, eight rows of ribbons on his chest and four stars on his epaulets, played the role with a studiously dispassionate air. He said the strategy of surging 30,000 troops into Iraq was in fact working on many fronts, so well that a similar number of troops could be home by next summer.

He had charts and data to support his claim of success and bolster his hope for the future. He marshaled strong facts, such as substantial overall progress in Anbar province and reduced violence in other parts of Iraq.

Clearly, the Bush administration had decided it was far better to have a man in uniform testify to Congress rather than have the president again try to persuade the American people—with the same set of facts as Petraeus—that his war strategy was working. Petraeus pointedly noted that the administration exerted no influence on his writing of the report.

But even a different voice didn't seem to change any minds in Congress in any significant way. Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, one of the Pentagon's favorite Democrats, called a roll of previous false claims of success, and labeled the "surge" as just the latest in a long line of operations that have not worked.

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