Quote Originally Posted by daihashi
I'm surprised, that was actually pretty good. Although I am stunned that he still sticks by what he says about the surge. He won't acknowledge being wrong. It was never the intent of the surge to help Iraqis take more responsibility, it was to drive the terrorists out and create safety so they could get this country off the ground THEN the iraqi's could take responsibility for themselves and they slowly but surely have been taking more and more responsibility.

I am confused how he can still say that he was right.
He never specifically said that he was right, and he did say the surge has been successful. He was saying that his recent criticism of it stemmed from the fact that the Iraqi government hasn't stepped up. Also, he said that he initially didn't support the surge because of the mismanagement of the war prior to that, but that the generals had really improved the way the war was being handled in recent months.

Still, the surge stabilized Iraq at the expense of destabilizing Afghanistan, which is where the Taliban actually is.