Earlier this month, a
posting on the Foreign Policy website caused a
firestorm by reporting that in January, Gen. David Petraeus “sent
a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America’s
relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as
the lives of America’s soldiers.”
According to the dispatch by Mark Perry (an
advocate of talks with terrorist groups), Petraeus requested
that the West Bank and Gaza be shifted to his Central Command
(from European Command) so that the U.S. military could “be
perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region’s most
troublesome conflict.”
The report, which was presented as context for the recent blowup
between the Obama administration and Israel, was quickly seized
on by critics of Israel as confirmation of their view that U.S.
support for Israel hinders America’s national security interests.
Soon, other blogs followed up by reporting that Petraeus echoed
this sentiment in testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee. For instance, in a post titled, “Petraeus Makes His
Move,” Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall
wrote, “Now we have (Petraeus) saying it in his own words.”
But on Wednesday, Petraeus poured cold water on the controversy,
explaining in detail why “all three items…were wrong, frankly.”
Petraeus made the remarks in response to a question by
TAS at a press briefing held prior to a scheduled
appearance St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
(Watch video of the full exchange
here.)
To start with, Petraeus said he never requested to have the West
Bank and Gaza added to his responsibilities as leader of the
military’s Central Command. He said that “every year or so”
commanders submit a plan that takes a geographic look at their
areas of responsibility, and then there’s discussion about
whether it would make sense to redraw the boundaries. For
instance, he said, last time Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea
and Djibouti were shifted to the Africa Command.
“Typically, there’s a question of should we ask to have Israel
and Palestinian territories included, because what goes on there
is obviously of enormous interest to the rest of the Central
Command area, which is the bulk of the Arab world,” Petraeus
said. However, he emphasized that it was “flat wrong” to claim he
actually requested responsibility for the areas.
He said the report was “based on ‘bad gouges,’ as a sailor would
say — bad information.”
He also refuted the claim that he had sent a request to the White
House, saying he “very rarely” sends things to the President, and
only does so if he’s specifically asked.
In addition, he explained that the quote that bloggers attributed
to his Senate testimony was actually plucked out of context from
a report that Central Command had sent the Armed Services
committee.
“There’s a 56-page document that we submitted that has a
statement in it that describes various factors that influence the
strategic context in which we operate and among those we listed
the Mideast peace process,” he said. “We noted in there that
there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel
and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I
don’t think that’s disputable. But I think people inferred from
what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and
bloggers picked it up and spun it. And I think that has been
unhelpful, frankly.”
He also noted that there were plenty of other important factors
that were mentioned in the report, including “a whole bunch of
extremist organizations, some of which by the way deny Israel’s
right to exist. There’s a country that has a nuclear program who
denies that the Holocaust took place.”
Petraeus continued, “So we have all the factors in there, but
this is just one, and it was pulled out of this 56-page document,
which was not what I read to the Senate at all.”
In an effort to tamp down the controversy, Petraeus said, he
spoke to Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense
Forces, and reassured him that the reports were inaccurate. He
also said he sent Ashkenazi a blog
post written by Max Boot of Commentary, which he
said “astutely” picked apart the erroneous information that’s
been floating around.
When asked about the claim that the perception that the U.S. is
too reflexively pro-Israel puts American soldiers at risk,
Petraeus said, “There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I
actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”
He said the only point was that moderate Arab leaders are worried
about a lack of progress in the peace process.
“Their concern is that those who promote violence in Gaza and the
West Bank will claim that because there’s no progress
diplomatically, the only way they get progress is through
violence,” he said. “And that’s their concern.”
Critics of Israel have tried to co-opt Petraeus as somebody who
shared their view that U.S. support for Israel has become a
liability for America. But in reality his only point is that lack
of progress in resolving the conflict is one factor — among many
others — that affects the dynamics of the region.
