Senate hearing postponed after Petraeus faints

By Mike Mount and Adam Levine, CNN

Washington (CNN) -- The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was escorted from a congressional hearing room after fainting during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, his spokesman said.

Gen. David Petraeus "is feeling much better," spokesman Col. Eric Gunhus said. "It appeared that he fainted."

A doctor checked Petraeus out and he returned to the hearing room to continue, but committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin "overruled him," Gunhus said. "Looks like we will continue tomorrow. He will be OK."

Petraeus returned amid applause to the hearing room. On his way out of the building, Petraeus told CNN's Dana Bash, "I'm doing OK. I just got a little dehydrated. I ate a couple of bananas and drank some water. I didn't eat breakfast this morning."

Petraeus is the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the conduct of the U.S. wars in the Middle East and central Asia.

Before he was escorted out, key senators questioned the progress and planning for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

Opening the hearing, Levin, D-Michigan, questioned the ratio of U.S. and NATO troops to Afghan troops, urging for a faster ramping up of Afghan security forces.

"Progress towards the goal of Afghans taking the lead in operations has been unsatisfactory. Today operations in Afghanistan are excessively dependent on coalition forces," Levin said.

Levin said in the coming campaign in Kandahar, there is a plan to have one Afghan service member for every two international troops. He called instead for a one-to-one ratio, with Afghan forces in the lead.

His Republican counterpart, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said in his opening remarks that the key trends were going in a "bad direction, perhaps even signaling a mounting crisis."

"Hoping for success on the arbitrary timeline set by the administration is simply unrealistic," McCain said, calling for the president to say the U.S. will stay in Afghanistan until there is success.

Prepared remarks from Petraeus said progress is being made even as the security violence has gotten more intense.

The surge of U.S. troops into Afghanistan is ahead of schedule, but the situation on the ground will get more difficult before it gets better, he warned in the prepared remarks. "I noted several months ago ... the going was likely to get harder before it got easier. That has already been the case, as we've seen recently."

All 30,000 additional U.S. troops ordered by President Barack Obama last year will be in place in Afghanistan by the end of August, according to Petraeus. Troops had originally been scheduled to be in place by September.

In the prepared remarks, he told the congressional panel Tuesday that increasing the size and capability of the struggling Afghan National Army and police forces are back on track, but there is more work to be done.

Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy also argued that progress has been made.

"We are regaining the initiative and the insurgency is beginning to lose momentum," she said in her opening statement, but noted outcome is "far from determined."