Frustrated Senators See No Exit Signs ( Still badgered Petraeus & Crocker at hearings...)

Washington Post ^ | Wednesday, April 9, 2008; Page A01 | By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writers

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Asked repeatedly yesterday what "conditions" he is looking for to begin substantial U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after this summer's scheduled drawdown, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said he will know them when he sees them. For frustrated lawmakers, it was not enough.

"A year ago, the president said we couldn't withdraw because there was too much violence," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "Now he says we can't afford to withdraw because violence is down." Asked Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.): "Where do we go from here?"

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said: "I think people want a sense of what the end is going to look like."

But the bottom line was that there was no bottom line. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker echoed what they said seven months ago in their last update to Congress -- often using similar words. Iraq's armed forces continue to improve, overall levels of violence are lower than they were last year, and political reconciliation is happening, albeit still more slowly than they would like.

"Iraq is hard, and reconciliation is hard," Crocker said in September. Yesterday, he added: "Almost everything about Iraq is hard."

[1035rep]

So-called 'good news' impedes congress' efforts to call it quits.

Could they be anymore obvious?