Iraqis watching the testimony from Army General David H. Petraeus on the efficacy of US President's surge strategy are unimpressed with it. "It is like a theatre," said teacher Abdullah Kadhim, 58, who was watching the Congressional hearing live on Al-Hurra television at his friend's general store in an inner Baghdad neighborhood.
"Each day they say there is a new report. They say they will bring a new change in Iraq. We can only hope there will finally be progress in security," Kadhim noted.
Saleh Adnan, 34, a car mechanic, also watching the broadcast, was dismissive.
"I don't think this will change anything in our country because the Americans will never leave Iraq. For us the main point is when the occupation will end," said Adnan.
"For me the main report will be the one which announces the American departure" he added.
Student Abdelbaqi al-Shimmari scoffed when the microphones went dead just as the chief US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, was to testify.
Watching Petraeus's lips moving in front of dead microphones, he said that "If the Americans can't make their own microphones work, how can they may things work in Iraq?"