Specifically, [Clark] Hoyt reports that he spoke to one of Petraeus' own advisers, and despite having advised Petraeus he still says that the General's recent testimony to Congress about Iraq may have been misleading in key ways:
Stephen Biddle, a scholar at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, said Petraeus's December number was "very high" but was likely the result of "statistical noise" — the tendency of Iraq numbers to jump all over the place. Biddle was an adviser to Petraeus last spring but believes the general's testimony was "potentially misleading" because it didn't discuss all the reasons why the numbers might have improved.
He said the best way to analyze statistics from Iraq is to gather all the numbers from all sources and look for broad trends instead of picking isolated points, as Petraeus did. Biddle examined data from nine sources on Iraqi civilian deaths, including the U.S. military, independent organizations like Brookings and Iraq Body Count and four news organizations. Although the specific monthly numbers varied widely, he said they all showed declines since late 2006.
MoveOn, and every single American who criticized General 'Sycophant' Petraeus, were right. He's a liar and a manipulator of the facts, just like the man who hired him.
