Clinton Almost Confirms Iraq “Surge in the South”

"Winslow Wheeler from the D.C.-based Center for Defense Information says that Senator Hillary Clinton almost got General David Petraeus, during his testimony yesterday, to confirm rumors I heard back in December: that the U.S. military had contingency plans to re-take Basra from Shi’ite militias:

She noted she heard Petraeus intimate earlier in the hearing that the U.S. might have had its own plans for military operations in Basra before Maliki’s fiasco was launched. (Gad Zooks! A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who spent a least some time listening to the witness before it was his/her turn.) Almost seeming caught off guard with a non-scripted, non-fluff ball question, Petraeus gave a very vague non-answer, but it seemed to confirm Clinton’s query. But then, Clinton utterly failed to follow up and to nail down the first real information the hearing threatened to reveal.

What irks me is that, just a couple weeks ago, Central Command Brigadier General Robert Holmes told me there was no such Basra plan. When I asked him about this rumored “surge in the south,” he said he was “clueless.” "
War is Boring