I can't imagine Gen. Petraeus or Amb. Crocker will bother to listen to Sen. Obama since he couldn't be bothered to show up and chair his own Subcommittee on European Affairs: the position of which is reason he will be meeting with them. Quite a contrast with Sen.'s McCain and Clinton, wouldn't you say, CNN?

What will be used next to frighten the people so it appears that McCain looks like the right person for the White House? another 4000 lives.

. . . since they have no bias and will tell us the unvarnished truth. Ah, ha ha ha ha.

Military decisions should be made based on what is happening on the ground in Iraq, not Washington.

Obviously democrats want another Vietnam..

General Washington must be spinning in his grave watching today's political showmenship..

Iraq is a debacle of astronomic proportions… Like a child playing with matches, the 'burn' rate has spun out of control with no end in sight. As much as Saddam was dispicable, Iraq (like Afganistan, today) has NO sustainable public institutions or infrastructure. We are to blame. And at what cost? Human life; an end of any near-term civil society in Iraq; it kept our eyes off of Bin Laden and Al-Queda; it devistated our own economy; it enriched oil allies, corporations and executives, while creating, in effect, a regressive tax on the poorest Americans by increased energy costs. Shame on Bush/Chaney & their Administrations, shame on McCain and his fellow Republicans, and SHAME ON Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who bought into the hype that it would be another Desert Storm, so they voted against moral right and sided with political opportunism and expediency.

"Obviously democrats want another Vietnam."

Amen…

Why doesnt the mainstream media mention that Mr. Obama never chaired the subcommittee that has oversight on NATO? If Hillary didnt mention it on the debates, it would be as if Obama is doing a great job, when he fails to do part of his job. Of course, now he must be drilling the general about Iraq.

I am sure that Sen. clinton is going to try to dominate the meeting and then miss the whole point of why we are still in iraq and the steps necessary to get out before we loose any more soldiers. and by the way north carlina sen. clinton has not been doing her job either. stop finger pointing and pat attention to our future.

Yea, lets just keep paying for rebuilding Iraqs infastructure, keep sending our troops to be killed and keep waiting to WIN! Meanwhile our bridges are failing our streets are failing our underground infrastructure is failing……….

Can someone tell me what exactly win means???

bring america's version of democracy to Iraq…yea right

CNN,

I should have read the full story, you mentioned in the following paragraph that Sen. Obama will have the same opportunity.

The greatest enemy to America in Iraq are the democrats. They cannot afford to have any success in Iraq.

How sad that American soldiers are political cannon-fodder.

"Obviously democrats want another Vietnam.."

I think the Republicans pretty much took care of that. Nice job.

It appears that McCain wants revenge and still reliving his days as a POW. The War NEEDS to END! He was fortunate enough to continue living. What about those men who gave their lives? I'm sure they would have chosen to have been taken as POW's.

I would like to know why we can train our soldiers in four months and then send them off to war and after five long years the Iraqi soldiers are still not combat ready. I knew George Bush was planning on going to war from the very minute he sent the weapons inspectors into iraq. I also knew the plan was to set up camp for many years to come. This is about one thing and one thing only!! oil. This is what John McCain means when he states that we need to protect our interests in Iraq. It has nothing to do with our desire to free the Iraqi people or we would be fighting in other countries in the name of justice and freedom. I've got an idea. Lets attack China and free Tibet as long as we are so concerned about freeing oppressed people.

Bring our troops home.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Send the Coward Bush.

This is a sad story

I'm sure that General Westmoreland will tell us that all is going swimmingly.

This General Petraeus disgusts me. He does not tell his real opinion, only what Bush wants to hear. If he says anything against Bush he will end up like Geneal Shinseki….

Forced into retirement!

RealityKing–I completely agree, along with Mr. Hancock, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Adams, and so many more…

btw…who enjoyed Obama's comments re knowing more than McCain re world affairs if for no other reason than because he lived in Indonesia for 4 years? Well, McCain lived abroad for 5 years, too–in Viet Nam in the "Hanoi Hilton." Obama can give a stirring speech, but when he blows it, he blows it big! His exposure to world affairs is not fit to sit in the same room with McCain's. He better stick to more plausible and realistic arguments.

I dont care about IRAQ im an AMERICAN and our needs come first. if they cant defend and govern themselves FRACK EM…..Bring our sons,daughters,husbands,wives home this ia a pointless war. not our war.

This war was not necessary. Why can't people see that fighting this war will not accomplish anything. It hasn't thus far. This is a Bush, Cheney war and now McCain. McCain doesn't have anything to lose. It appears that he wants to take us all down with him.After all, longevity is something that he no longer cares about.

Note- MCCAIN AND CLINTON will question. Not BO. OBAMA IS A JUNIIOR SENATOR. That's right people- A JUNIOR SENATOR running for president….ah dear….

North Carolina - What? Why would his European Affairs subcommittee matter when talking about Iraq? I guess it doesn't matter to you since you'll just chip away at any thing you can even with a nonsensical argument. I guess it doesn't matter to you that Hillary Clinton failed to attend the only 2 Afghanistan meetings held by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Nah, doesn't matter when it doesn't serve your purpose. The fact is most of the time the only person attending these meetings is the chair himself while all other senators are absent and especially during a presidential campaign. So congratulations, you got your snippet out, but it holds NO weight at all.

Obama must have been up all night before today's hearings. I hope he read the notes correctly from his advisors so he can ask the right questions.

Gen. Petraeus - " yes mr Bush. Whatever you say Mr Bush"

The one lesson learned in Vietnam–was not trying to politicize the war for personal gain by our elected officials in Washington which stirred dissident public sentiment–causing the executive branch, defense department to adapt failing strategies and resulted in our eventual pull-out and loss of all the ground gained and sacrifices made to the communist forces of North Vietnam.

It appears our esteemed Democratic socalists in congress are once again trying to use the misery of Iraq and the sacrifices of our military for their own political purposes.

I'm personally sickened by the littany of defeat coming from the entire line up: Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Clinton, etc.

i See the republicans or on here today warmonger supporters

We are forgetting how this War got started. It is not America problem to fiinance IRAQ economy. America is Broke and we can afford to pay our own bills. IRAQ must stand up now. Let them take out a loan from China. We can't carry this on America's pocket.. Last time I check our pocket is empty.

Congress can not continue to write checks that we can not payback. Our grand children can not be force to pay this bill.

Gen. Patraeus. need to stop asking for money unless we are talking about what America is going to get out of it.

Cam America get Oil fpr Cash and security.. The Answer is No, Because that would work against the Dick Chaney Plan. This is Dick Chaney and George Bush Plan to Cause America to Pay More fo Oil. Hell!!! They Care less about America footing the Bill or Troops lives lost.. Listen to Dick Chaney.. He Careless about lives lost of the cost of the war they only care about Winfall profits..

America, needs to wake up.

Don't we already have another Vietnam . . . tremendous losses of blood and treasure in a war with absolutely no exit strategy, only demands that we stay until some undefined "victory?"

Fourteen months ago, the President announced the escalation, I mean "surge," and said its success would be measured by specific benchmarks. We have achieved few of those benchmarks, and indeed hear nothing about them anymore.

Instead, after five years with no exit strategy and no measurable success, all we get is yet another plea for "patience." If the President had said the point of the "surge" was to bring down violence to 2005 or 2006 levels, who would have supported it? That's all we have to show for it. Enough already.

I am eager to see if Obama will say, I happen to agree with everything
Hillary is saying, that's what he always does when he dosen't know
the answer. Did you ever watch the debates? That's his one liner.

Talimee - Please, enlighten us! What would NATO be able to do right now that's so important for Obama to hold an oversight committee for? I suppose that doesn't matter when you don't understand the purpose of NATO.

For anyone who ACTUALLY cares to know, NATO is a DEFENSIVE military pact. Guess what? We haven't been attacked since Obama has been chair of the European Affairs committee. That was 2001… he began chair in 2007.

You guys can keep up these arguments all you want, but they are unintelligent and hasty to cast criticism that doesn't make any sense.

Desperate times?

Its rediculous.. Gen Petraeus says were "paying off" the terrorists not to attack us. What a good use of taxpayer dollars.

This is looneyville

I wanna know why the Iraq Army has M16's..?? Isnt that our weapon.?

What If we have to fight thse guys and now they have body armor and M16's which is far more accurate than AK47's..

When will the stupidity end?

bring on the draft at lets see how fastt this war comes to a end. all the people you are beating the war drums, believe me the army will take you and even get a little money, and you'll be able to serve 2 12 months tour or maybe 15.

cnn endorse clinton and get it over with,ac 360 and jack cafferty and wolf are the only people that makes sense,if u dont change this kinda of reporting i will rather watch the hate that spills out of fox news,the 3 candidates r going to be questioning the gen,not just hill and mccain,even fox news reported the truth,i cant believe i have being saying u re better than fox,live up to that name CNN,

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH THIS WAR IS THAT IT IS BEING FOUGHT ON TELEVISION. SO MANY AMERICANS ERRONEOUSLY THINK THEY KNOW THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS, WHEN THE FACT IS THEY HAVE NO IDEA. THE DEMS SAYING THEY WILL END THE WAR QUICKLY IS RIDICULOUS UNLESS THEY PLAN TO SURRENDER TO THE ENEMY (WHICH IS REAL — NOT A BUSH FANTASY). GET REAL, PLEASE, USA, WHILE WE CAN.

Patreaus, Crocker and their Commander In Chief Bush will howl like all the devils of hell and startle the echoes of the dead in the holy war. Give ' em Hell! Patreaus, Crocker, and Bush. All it is, is like a Sunday drive, hippety-hop and a stroll through Iraq its not like jaywalking.

For those of you who won't listen to a four star general but the biased main stream media, you make me sick.

People, wake the hell up! Since when are the hundreds of thousands of middle eastern lives lost and the four thousand and counting American lives lost and untold thousands maimed permanently worth this political grandstanding? We should never have invaded Iraq and the only thing to do now is get out. We have virtually ruined the infrastructure of this country. These people couldn't return to a normal life there if they wanted to. We rebuilt Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I guess middle easterners don't deserve our help after we've torn their country all to crap.

Now, all of you war divas need to get a grip and face some generally known facts. Hell, at least read the 911 commission report. THERE WAS NOT THEN,AND NEVER HAS BEEN A REASON FOR THE US TO INVADE IRAQ!

Let us look at this in a rational sense.

The war was not needed, Iraq DID NOT pose a threat. However , that being said is history. The fact is that we are there.

The invasion of Iraq was a complete success. The US military completed very mission that they were given and deafeated Iraq soundly. However, the occupation of Iraq was a failure, that the political machine, managed in spectacular fashion.

Now, if we would do an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, what would the ramifications be, would the terrorist follow our forces home as some administration officials have claimed? No, that would not happen and why is that, because they know where we live, and if they could attack us here they would rather do that than attack forces that can respond back. What it would do however is leave a vacucum in the middle east, one that use to be filled by Saddam, a stabilizing force, one that you might not have liked but one that had a role in middle eastern stability. Bottom line, we can not leave at this time.

Now with regards to those of you that do not think much of Gen Petraeus, the advances that have been made in Iraq are a direct result of Petraeus's efforts, not those of the political machine. Petraeus actually engages the Iraqi people, gets them involved, helps them stand on their own two feet and take back their communities. His commanders work with the Iraqi people not against them.

It is General Petraeus's job to advise and recommend to the President through the chain of command actions to be taken in Iraq. It is the President's job to take that information and decide on what he wants done. Once the decision has been made by the President, it is Petraeus's job to carry out that decision, with out dissent. Wheather or not the President wishes to listen to his Generals is another issue all together.

Let Petraeus give his update. What to listen for, is it straight forward, factual or is it muddyed with administration double talk. I am hoping that Petraeous gives it to Congress straight from the hip no holds barred as to progress and what he needs. If we start hearing double talk or administration double talk, then we have problems.

Does anyone really believe that General Betray-us will tell us the truth about this unwinnable war? It's sickening.

Like many, I'm against this war. However, what I'm also against is that putz Senator Levin pathetic line of questioning! "Could it be 3 months, 4 months, 3 months? General Petraeus deserves better.

VH- you hot-aired filled peice of garbage!!!Sen. Clinton is on the Arms Commitee.

Running for president in a highly publicized campaign is a bit more lighthearted than this issue.

Go blow your hot air somewhere else.

we would have lost world war 2 with today's media coverage…

we would have quit or surrendered right before midway and the German invasion into Western Russia with this attitude….

4,000 people dying is truly awful, but that is what WAR is… people die.

416,000 died in WW2… oh man I can see the coverage now… one bomb kills one person yet again.. pull us out it's not safe…

truth is, those delivering the information have no freaking idea what it's about, and it's really sad…

cnn rocks- McCain and Clinton will get in first rounds of questioning because they are on a foreign relations committee (= EXPERIENCE) while JUNIIOR SENATOR Obama will have to wait his turn….It will be interesting to see what he asks- since he is such an expert on foreign relations due to his many vacations like he says!!!

It appears that McCain and Petreaus have rehearsed their answers and questions. BRING THE TROOPS HOME!

I'm ashamed that my people make this a debate about personalities while the meat grinder continues to squander lives.

We don't need Petraeus' testimony to understand that this escalation is a tactical success in support of a strategy that leads only to more of the same. There is not, and never has been, a coherent strategy behind the Iraq adventure, and the truth is that we have squandered the strength of our finest for no achievable purpose.

What US national interest is really at stake in Iraq, and how do possibly stand to benefit from the ongoing conflict and chaos there? If we can't answer this simply-stated question, we had no business ever violating Iraq's sovereignty in the first place.

The trillion dollars and nearly 20,000 lives (counting the maimed and permanently disabled) we've already squandered are gone forever. The Bush administration keeps low-balling the costs of this adventure (it's not really a war, the US nor any close allies were never under any threat from Iraq) to maintain political cover so they can keep it going. They even go as far as to deny their responsibility to care for maimed and disabled veterans, to reject the educational burden of re-integrating the survivors into peacetime society, and to invoke stop-loss intended for emergencies to support a military adventure that was never any kind of emergency but the kind this administration manufactured. The blood and treasure we've already squandered are gone forever.

For the sake of our men in harm's way, for the sake of our national integrity, at least demand a strategy by which the US has something to gain before you support more of the same, and stop calling it a war; war has not been declared by Congress, and this adventure has been instigated solely by the Bush administration. It's like Korea in that regard, except that the Korean intervention at least won us respect, while Iraq has earned us derision.

Lastly, please, please refrain from getting back on "the troops can't have died in vain" hobby horse. That's the kind of thinking you sell to adolescents in cartoons. If we've destroyed the lives of 20,000 of our young people and millions of Iraqis without creating any lasting benefit in the process, then that blood and treasure have been spent in vain, and spending still more to support a catastrophic status quo won't change that harsh truth.

We made this mess, we're in it now, and we're going to have to do what's best from here without further whining about our past losses.

""General Washington must be spinning in his grave watching today's political showmenship..""

General Washington would be turning over in his grave just over the fact that we have political parties.

They can continue the war because of a lot of reasons, one to
protect our troops and our good people of American. But the
war was wrong in the first place. Have we bred more terrors?
Are they going to follow us home? Have we made a mess of
that country? Have we "awakened cells of a sleeping giant.?

GO MCCAIN!

Anyone else curious about why we are hearing so much about the "treat from IRAN"?

Is the USA going to invade IRAN?

Maya, that "JUNIOR SENATOR" IS AHEAD IN THE POLLS AND IN THE DELEGATE COUNT!!! HA HA HA!

Our children will never be able to compete globally because it appears that this administration continues to deceive American's about their involvement in this war .Our schools are inadequate, the dropout rate of our youth continues to rise, the suffering of the aging who cannot pay for their medication, can barely make ends meet, cannot pay their high utility bills, losing their homes, among many other things, but we continue to pour money into Iraq. Americans are suffering here in America and all those airheads in Washington are using this war as a means to pad their own pockets. It's all about the oil! Who do they think they are fooling?

My question to General Petraeus:

Are those former Sunni insurgents and ex-soldiers of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard fighting on our side because they have seen the light and now embrace the ideals of a free and democratic government akin to ours, or because we are paying them?

If they are doing it just for the money, then there’s no reason to trust them or to think that the Surge is working.

Carlos Navarro
Davidson, NC

I say bring all the troops home. That includes Germany, England, Turkey, Japan, Korea, etc. Let's use them to strengthen our borders and fix our problems and let the rest of the world go to he**. Oh that is right that kind of sounds like a "Military State". Isn't that what we were originally fighting?

Let the military finish the job and keep the press out of it.

Get the troops out! Get the troops out! Get the troops out!

Who cares about what you said except the republicans that live in a cage?
Bring our troops home……there is nothing intriguing or new about this Bush/McCain/Hillary's war………………….Bring our heros back……..restore our respect across the globe……………..

We are not fighting for anything in Iraq.

We are fighting against tryanny and oppression. A noble cause indeed.

After All, Iraq is not our country, our home and our dream. Let our heros go home. We should not invest so much money, energy, people on it and leave our own country behind.
Is it fair?

It appears that McCain is adamant about our troops remaining in Iraq. Is this the basis of his experience to lead the country. Hopefully, the democrat who gets the nomination will test his ability on other issues. But as I stated in my previous comment, it really doesn't matter if you are in the circle, whether republican or democrat.