Petreaus was not being honest?

[babylonsister]

http://philippeduhart.blogspot.com/2007/10/petreaus-was-not-being-honest.html

Petreaus was not being honest?

Remember Petreaus insisting that the central government in Iraq was heading up the recruitment and training of Sunni Abaris for the national police force? This, he claimed, was a significant sign of political reconciliation and of enduring stability in Iraq. The "Anbar model" was in no way being undertaken solely by the American military, without the support of the state; therefore it did not represent a threat to the central state, nor would allying with Sunnis prove counterproductive to the overall goal of building a viable state in Iraq.

Well, this claim wasn't true at all. Bullshit. No such thing is happening.

According to the New York Times:

...now that the Americans are trying to institutionalize the arrangement by training the Sunnis to become policemen, the effort has been hampered by halfhearted support and occasionally outright resistance from a Shiite-dominated national government that is still inclined to see the Sunnis as a once and future threat.

It was the American military that pressed to open the new Habbaniya Police Training Center, where Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents are to be trained to serve as policemen in Anbar. And it was the Americans who provided the uniforms, food, new classrooms and equipment for the police recruits.

While the Iraqi government has agreed to basic police instruction at the academy, it has balked at training police leaders there. The government has also scaled back plans by Anbar officials to expand the provincial police force by almost 50 percent.

“The Ministry of Interior deals with the Sunni provinces different than they deal with the other provinces,” said Brig. Gen. David D. Phillips, an American Army officer who oversees the training of the Iraq police. “The only reason the Anbar academy opened is because we built it, paid for it and staffed it.” He said the Interior Ministry “was very hesitant about it.”

Does that make Petreaus a liar and an opportunistic shill for the Administration? Or simply completely out of touch with the reality of the situation he's supposed to be overseeing?

A liar of an incompetent? Which one is worse?