From just last week!
"There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq," Petraeus told a news conference, adding that political negotiations were crucial to forging any lasting peace.
Petraeus said talks should include "some of those who have felt the new Iraq did not have a place for them," and said a key challenge facing Iraq's government was to identify "reconcilable" militant groups and bring them inside the political process.
Petraeus took charge of the 140,000-strong U.S. force in Iraq last month. Since a successful invasion in 2003, which quickly overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime, U.S. forces have become bogged down by a combination of attacks by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq and bloody sectarian fighting between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis.
On Thursday Petraeus said he saw no need to bolster troop numbers beyond reinforcements announced by the White House for a renewed effort to improve security in Baghdad and Anbar province. But he warned those troops committed to the campaign would likely remain in place "beyond the summer."
"This endeavor will take months -- not days or weeks to implement," he said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday announced plans to send almost 5,000 additional troops to Iraq to serve as military police, bringing the planned "surge" to 26,000.
"Right now we do not see other requests [for troops] looming out there. That's not to say that some emerging mission or emerging task will not require that, and if it does then we will ask for that," Petraeus said.
Read that first sentence over and over again. No military solution.
