[NYTr] Petraeus Not Under Oath: McGovern Thrown Out for Demanding Sworn Testimony

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Consortium News - Sep 10, 2007
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091007a.html

"Swear Him In" Provokes Expulsion

By Ray McGovern
September 10, 2007

“Swear him in.” That’s all I said in the unusual silence this afternoon
as first aid was being administered to Gen. David Petraeus’s microphone
at the hearing before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs
Committees.

It had dawned on me that when House Armed Services Committee Chairman
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, invited Gen. Petraeus to make his
presentation, Skelton forgot to ask him to take the customary oath to
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  I had no
idea that would be enough to get me thrown out of the hearing.

I had a flashback to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in early
2006, when Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, reminded chairman Arlen
Specter, R-Pennsylvania, that Specter had forgotten to swear in the
witness, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and how Specter insisted
that that would not be necessary.

Now that may, or may not, be an invidious comparison. But Petraeus and
Gonzales work for the same boss, who has a rather unusual relationship
with the truth. How many of his senior staff could readily be
convicted, as was the hapless-and-now-commuted Scooter Libby, of
perjury?

So I didn’t think twice about it. I really thought that Skelton perhaps
forgot, and that the 10-minute interlude of silence while they fixed
the microphone was a good chance to raise this seemingly innocent
question.

The more so since the ranking Republican representatives had been
protesting too much. In the obverse of “killing the messenger,” they
had been canonizing the messenger with protective fire.

Ranking Armed Services Committee member Duncan Hunter, R-California,
began what amounted to a SWAT-team attack on the credibility of those
who dared attack the truthfulness of the sainted Petraeus, and issued a
special press release decrying a full-pager in the New York Times
equating Petraeus with “Betray-us.”

Hunter served notice on any potential doubters, insisting that
Petraeus’s “capability, integrity, intelligence...are without
question.” And Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, ranking member of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed that theme, unwittingly
choosing another infelicitous almost-homonym for the charges against
Petraeus—“outrageous.”

Indeed, Hunter’s prepared statement, which he circulated before the
hearing, amounted to little more than a full-scale “duty-honor-country”
panegyric for the general.

On the chance we did not hear him the first time, Hunter kept repeating
how “independent” Petraeus is, how candid and full of integrity, and
compared him to famous generals who testified to Congress in the
past—Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Schwarzkopf. Advisedly, Hunter avoided
any mention of Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in
Vietnam, who fell tragically short on those traits. [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “Is Petraeus Today’s Westmoreland.”]

If memory serves, the aforementioned generals and Westmoreland were
required to testify under oath. And this was one of the main sticking
points when CBS aired a program showing that Westmoreland had
deliberately dissembled on the strength of Communist forces and U.S.
“progress” in the war.

When Westmoreland sued CBS for libel, several of his subordinates came
clean, and Westmoreland quickly dropped the suit. The analogy with
Westmoreland—justifying a White House wish to persist in an unwinnable
war —is the apt one here.

If Petraeus is so honest and full of integrity, what possible objection
could he have to being sworn in?

I had not the slightest hesitation being sworn in when testifying
before the committee assembled by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, on
June 16, 2005. Should generals be immune? Or did his masters wish to
give him a little more assurance that he could play fast and loose with
the truth without the consequences encountered by Scooter Libby.

With the microphone finally fixed, it quickly became clear. Petraeus
tried to square a circle in his very first two paragraphs.

In the first, he thanks the committees for the opportunity to “discuss
the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the
way forward.” Then he stretches credulity well beyond the breaking
point—at least for me:

“At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony.
Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain
of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by,
nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.”

Is not the Commander-in-Chief in Petraeus’s chain of command?

As Harry Truman, D-Missouri, would have said, “Does he think we were
born yesterday?”


[Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the
ecumenical Church of the Savior in Washington, DC. He was an Army
infantry/intelligence officer in the early sixties and then a CIA
analyst from 1963 to 1990. He had a front-seat for the charades
orchestrated by Westmoreland in Vietnam. His e-mail is
RRMcGovern at aol.com ]