Petraeus, Crocker Discuss Iraq Assessment

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• JIM LEHRER:

  And to Army General David Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

  Mr. Ambassador, General, welcome.

  GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, Commander, U.S. Forces in Iraq: Good to be with you.

• JIM LEHRER:

  General, some of the response you received the last two days from members of Congress was skeptical, if not hostile. Did you expect that kind of reception?

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  Well, there's certainly an intensity to the impatience and the frustration that was very, very palpable. I tried to lay out the situation on the ground. And it is very clear the enormous desire for results. And, again, you can feel that from afar; you can feel it in Baghdad. But you obviously feel it a great deal more in Washington and on Capitol Hill.

• JIM LEHRER:

  You felt the frustration, too, Mr. Ambassador?

  RYAN CROCKER, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq: It was clearly there. And it's a frustration, of course, that General Petraeus and I share every day we're doing our jobs out there in Iraq.

• JIM LEHRER:

  So it doesn't surprise you that members of Congress and members of the American public are asking skeptical and hostile questions and having that kind of response?

• RYAN CROCKER:

  Well, we follow the news, so, no, I was not surprised by what I heard.

• JIM LEHRER:

  One of the — it was said by one of the members of Congress to the two of you that the reason that a lot of people are skeptical is because there have been so many optimistic statements over the last four-and-a-half years that didn't prove to be correct. Do you agree with that?

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  Well, there have been optimistic statements. I've made a couple of optimistic statements myself. And I think that, unfortunately, the events, in particular the ethno-sectarian violence that escalated so tragically and horrifically in 2006 and on, did some of the reasons that we had a degree of optimism at various times.

  I now say that I'm not an optimist or a pessimist. I'm a realist. And the reality is that Iraq is very, very hard, and there's nothing easy or quick about solving its problems.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Mr. Ambassador, how would you guide an average American — forget a member of the Congress now — but folks who've listened to you all the last two days and listening to you now, how should they approach your comments, your report? Should they approach it with skepticism? Should they approach it with, "Hey, we're getting the straight skinny from these two guys"? What is it?

• RYAN CROCKER:

  Well, I would hope very much that it would be the latter. I worked very hard to deliver as frank, as sober, and as honest an assessment as I possibly could. And I was very careful in there not to make too many predictions of success being right around the corner, because, as General Petraeus says, Iraq is hard. Iraq is enormously complicated. And events have a way of turning back on you without much notice.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Did you hear anything from the other side, General, in other words, the people who were criticizing what you were saying and asking you questions, General, to say, "Hey, I hadn't thought of that myself," that might influence your thinking from this point forward?

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  Again, I took just this enormous reservoir of frustration, candidly. It's the only way to describe it. Obviously, a degree of skepticism is challenging, that's our system, though, and they were very quick to remind us of that, frankly.

• JIM LEHRER:

  But, no, you didn't hear any new ideas or new approaches amidst the criticism, amidst the questioning, that you said, "Hey, wait a minute."

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  Well, you know, we've had, I think, close to 30 percent of the Senate visit us in Iraq in the last seven or so months. And I forget, I think it's about 20 percent of the House or substantial numbers of congressional delegations. And they've certainly been very direct and frank with us and with the senior Iraqi leaders when they have visited.

  But it's one thing to get it in small doses, shall we say, and it's a bit different to have back-to-back hearings for a 10-hour period yesterday, in particular.

• JIM LEHRER:

  But essentially, then, you gave your report, you listened to the comments and to the questioning, now you're going to go back and continue the course that you outlined, correct?

• RYAN CROCKER:

  Well, that's absolutely right. We were committed to making these assessments. And our job now is back in Iraq to get on with making the effort to help Iraqis move toward a stable and secure future.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Now, the president has endorsed your recommendations. Is that right, General? Is he going to say that tomorrow night?

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  Well, he's going to make a speech tomorrow night, as I understand it. And we'll have to see what he says during that. But I think that's correct.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Have the two of you not talked to the president since you came back to Washington?

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  Actually, we both talked to him today.

• JIM LEHRER:

  You did today?

• GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS:

  We did not before the testimony. We hadn't — neither of us had seen him or talked to him. At least I had not since he visited Al Asad Air Base, Anbar province, in Iraq about a week-and-a-half ago now.

• JIM LEHRER:

  But you have the impression that the president is going to endorse what you said and will do, correct?

• RYAN CROCKER:

  Well, in the phone conversation I had with him, we didn't go into the next steps, so we'll see what he says on Thursday.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Did he seem pleased by what you said?

• RYAN CROCKER:

  He was very encouraging and very supportive, knew that it had been a hard couple of days, and just thanked me for my service and for hanging in there.