Obama, McCain Congratulate Generals on Senate Confirmation

WASHINGTON — The Democratic and Republican contenders for the presidency congratulated General David Petraeus after the full Senate confirmed his nomination 95 to 2 to take the reins of the military sphere that includes Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, known as Central Command.

While both Senator Obama and Senator McCain were on the stump and missed the vote, the campaigns of the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees for the presidency were supportive of the general who will command the theater most important to the war on terror if either wins the White House in November.

The Senate also confirmed yesterday by a vote of 96 to 1 the nomination of Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno to take over command of Multi-National Force-Iraq, the post General Petraeus is leaving.

General Petraeus oversaw the military's partnering with Iraqi tribes that has nearly defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"Senator Obama congratulates General Petraeus on this important confirmation, and wishes him well in carrying out a broad range of responsibilities in a vital region to the United States," a spokesman for the Obama campaign, Tommy Vietor, said,

The foreign policy coordinator for the McCain campaign, Randy Scheunemann, said, "Senator McCain is very pleased that two generals who masterminded the turnaround in Iraq were overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate to assume their new positions and he is completely confident they will discharge their responsibilities as well in their new job as they performed in their previous position."

The two senators who voted against the nomination of General Petraeus were Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa, and Robert Byrd, a Democrat of West Virginia.

Mr. Byrd said yesterday that he voted against confirming General Petraeus to the new position because he hoped the general would stay in Iraq to continue the good work he was doing there. "General Petraeus has only been in his current position for 18 months," he said. "Since President Bush believes that General Petraeus has done well in his current position, but he, Secretary Gates, and General Petraeus have all described the security situation in Iraq as tenuous and reversible, it does not seem prudent to remove the mastermind behind the fragile successes that have been thus far achieved."

Mr. Harkin said he voted against both generals because neither would present a plan for withdrawing soldiers from Iraq.

At the same time, other leading Democrats who also have called for a troop withdrawal from Iraq voted for both generals.

Majority Leader Reid, a Democrat of Nevada, congratulated both men in a statement. But he also said, "I will be monitoring Petraeus's and Odierno's performance to see if they will provide realistic assessments of the situation on the ground and be open to the smart strategy changes necessary to make America safer."

In testimony last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Petraeus said one of his first trips in his new post would be to Pakistan, a country whose frontier tribal provinces, on the border of Afghanistan, are believed by American intelligence to host Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda's senior leadership.

In 2006, Pakistan's military signed a series of cease-fire agreements with the tribal governors of those provinces, effectively giving Al Qaeda and the Taliban an unmolested safe haven. Last month, General Petraeus began informal talks with Pakistan's new ambassador to Washington on the issue.