At Petraeus Hearings: Concern Over Afghanistan Drawdown

By Eric Rice

Republican members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee zeroed in on President Obama’s announcement on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in their questioning of General David Petraeus on Thursday at his confirmation hearing to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Petraeus said repeatedly that the timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan was “more aggressive” than he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen had suggested.  However, he qualified each such statement by saying that he was coming from purely a military perspective and that every military commander wants more resources.  The General emphasized that the Commander in Chief has made his decision and it is his sworn duty to carry it out.  He said that he would absolutely not consider resigning in protest.

Other members of the committee focused their questions on how he would handle the different culture at CIA.  Petraeus said that his first day at Langley he would “get out of my vehicle by myself” and would not bring his military brain trust with him.  “I wanted this job,” he told Senator Rockefeller (D-W.V.) as proof of his enthusiasm, in response to a question about boosting morale at the agency.   He explained that he understood that the CIA is a relatively flat organization where the strict military chain of command is conspicuously absent.  

Another hot topic, brought up by Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.), was torture. Petraeus, after noting that the CIA neither holds nor interrogates detainees, said that he was staunchly opposed to torture and had helped draft the Army Field Manual, which lays out interrogation guidelines “that work.”  He did say that a process for authorizing torture in certain extreme situations should be discussed.  The example he used was: the man who knows the codes to disarm a nuclear weapon under the Empire State Building set to go off in 30 minutes.

Petraeus received the expected warm welcome, and was thanked for his by basically every member of the committee.  Committee Chair Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she hoped to confirm him by July 4th.