1115.org

It’s starting to look like you can count on our defense establishment to backtrack on every important promise or pronouncement within 30 days.

Last week it was the spectacle of the military reneging on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ guarantee that troops “will be at home for a full 12 months” between deployments.

This week we have that night in shining armor Gen. David Petraeus backing off on his forthright pledge to provide an assessment of progress in Iraq in September.

Here’s what he said on April 26:

During Secretary Gates’ recent visit to Iraq, we agreed that in early September, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and I would provide an assessment of the situation in Iraq with respect to our mission and offer recommendations on the way ahead. We will be forthright in that assessment, as I believe I have been with you today.

And here’s what he’s saying now:

Come September, I don’t think we’ll have anything definitive in September [although] certainly we’ll have some indicators on the political side in Iraq

Can’t say I didn’t call it:

…between now and September all kinds of things may happen to cause Gen. Petraeus to change his mind about when the progress of the surge can and should be judged.
[…]
The trouble with the “just wait till September” argument is that it seems to rest on some kind of assumption that Gen. Petraeus is an honorable man. From where I’m sitting, the evidence seems to be that this statement is true only in the sense of Mark Anthony’s famous “So are they all, all honourable men”.