Gen. David Petraeus was confirmed as commander of US forces in Iraq by an 81-0 vote of the Senate back in January. That news evidently hasn’t reached former New Mexico governor and Democrat presidential candidate Bill Richardson, though. Appearing on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Richardson twice referred to Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as the US commander in Iraq. Sanchez left that job in June 2004 amid the Abu Ghraib scandal (though Sanchez wasn’t personally involved in that) and was replaced by Gen. George Casey.

Gen. Petraeus’ tenure in charge of the war in Iraq has seen a remarkable turnaround in US fortunes there. Combat deaths, sectarian violence, and murders are all down; Sunni cooperation with US forces against al Qaeda is way up. Evidently, that news hasn’t reached Richardson either, and when host Chris Wallace points it out, it makes no difference. Richardson doesn’t let the facts get in his way. He not only cites Sanchez as the commander, but relies exclusively on Sanchez’s opinion of the status of the war in Iraq even though Sanchez hasn’t been in command for more than three years.

If elected president, Richardson says he would have all US troops out of Iraq within his first year. The strategy he describes for dealing with Iraq amounts to cut, run and gab with the mullahs. Among other things, he wants an “all-Muslim” peacekeeper force that also includes European forces. Never mind that whether the all-Muslim force is mostly Sunni or Shia would have a major impact on how and where it could be deployed successfully in Iraq, how does one build an all-Muslim force that includes Europeans? Especially when the Europeans aren’t exactly pulling their weight in Afghanistan.