Troops will withdraw.
Topic: Iraq

On the front page of the FT today there’s a story about a planed withdrawal of most US troops from Iraq by the end of next year. This seems to contradict Bush’s repeated vows of staying the course at his hand-picked military rallies over the past three days. Any withdrawal before the mission is accomplished in Iraq would “only embolden the terrorists and create a staging ground for more attacks against America and free nations.” Scott McClellan, the oracle of truth, says, “Any suggestion that there is disagreement between our president and the military command is absurd.”

No, what’s absurd is the contention that us declaring victory and departing now would leave the Iraqis to the terrorists. This is very unlikely. Just think about what the Sunnis have to contend with. Between the Badr Brigade, the Peshmergas, and the Madhi Army, I doubt the insurgents would have much of a chance.

The real question is, where would all the foreign insurgents go? Since most of them are coming from Saudi Arabia, the Royal Saud family must be hoping we stay for a long, long time.

General Douglas Lute, the director of operations at Centcom, is quoted in FT as saying, “you have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It’s very difficult to so that when you have 150,000 plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country.” The plan is to withdraw most troops by handing over security to Iraqi forces, who ever they may be, in 14 of the 18 provinces considered to be mainly peaceful. (Of course, this has nothing to do with the mid-terms coming up in '06.)

Lute says, "We believe at some point, in order to break this dependence on the . . . coalition, you simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward." Looks like they're stepping forward all right." But what about General Schoomaker's worst case scenario of 100,000 troops remaing for another four years? "I will tell you this, as the operation officer of Centcom, if a year from now I've got to call on all those army troops that Gen Schoomaker is prepared to provide, I won't feel real good about myself."


But W. is felling good about himself. He's been on vacation for almost a month now and he's getting rave reveiws from his hand picked war fests. Do his adivsors actually think these staged events are really going to win over the two-thirds of Americans who think this war is pointless? Or is it just to make him fell better?