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US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and I have repeatedly sought to emphasize that the progress in Iraq is fragile and also, possibly, reversible.

David Petraeus

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David Petraeus
Age: 71
Born: 1952
Born: November 7
Former Director Of The Central Intelligence Agency
Military Officer
Politician
New York City
New York
David Howell Petraeus
Repeatedly
Sought
Fragile
Crocker
Possibly
Reversible
Iraq
Ambassador
Progress
Emphasize
Also
Ryan
Ambassadors

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After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.
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Every civilian's death diminishes us, collectively.
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The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.
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There [in Afghanistan] is also a growing insurgency threat from al-Qaida, the Taliban and other extremist elements, some of which comes from the tribal areas of Pakistan, as well as from the Northwest Frontier province and Baluchistan.
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Al-Qaida in particular remains dangerous, and there [in Iraq] is some residual militia and special group presence. There are still between 20 and 30 attacks per day, still periodic car bombs and still loss of innocent civilians.
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I will not ever run for political office, I can assure you of that.
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Don't forget Yemen, where there are also extremist elements, as we saw recently.
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Fighting in cities is a totally different endeavor than obviously fighting out in the open.
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Iraq has gone from being on the brink to being on the mend, and it clearly has some big advantages.
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Let's remember that the reason we are there is that we have vital interests in Afghanistan, hugely important national interests, as do the other countries involved.
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The Islamic State fighters in Mosul are dead men walking and I think they increasingly know it.
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The question is always how you get the number of troops needed. They do not have to be coalition forces. We also have to expand the training program for the Afghan National Army and the national police, in particular. and Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already announced support for a significant increase in the Afghan army.
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If you look at casualties, you find countries that had much higher loss rates per capita than the US. Denmark comes to mind, the United Kingdom, they have suffered heavy losses at various points, the Germans as well.
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There has, indeed, been very substantial progress in Iraq over the past year - violence is down by 80 percent, civilian deaths by about the same, and so on.
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I think no commander ever is going to come out and say, 'I'm confident that we can do this.
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Pakistan are very keen to carry out the operations themselves. And there's significant effort on the part of the US and other countries to provide assistance that can enable Pakistan to do just that.
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I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction.
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We obviously don't want to cause problems for the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people. In fact, we want them to support our efforts on their behalf and not see us as unwelcome occupiers.
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I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed the long war.
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The first official statements of President Asif Ali Zardari's new government have been firm and robust. Pakistan is obviously a renewed democracy.
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