I'm I the only one that noticed this? ... 6 battalions of Iraqi troops can act on there own, down from 10 in May ... Not to worry though, it's to be expected ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003788862_iraqexit14.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HX3wb2j-EbE

7/14/2007 8:10:25 PM

Don't care. They'll figure it out themselves, or else. Nothing like an existential crisis to give people the right incentives.

7/14/2007 10:54:05 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070714/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AjN6eI1e1hLAvCTPW.vjPZ2s0NUE

Quote :

" Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want." One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in a U.S. lab. ... "

Their politicians might possibly be as dumb and shortsighted as ours, but I don't see how we expect to make any progress when their leaders are getting a bit irritated at our presence. It seems if the leadership doesn't want us there, and the prime minister's advisers thinks we are screwing up their country and violating human rights, it's impossible to succeed. If these statements characterize the rest of the Iraqi gov., then the best decision is for us to leave.

The arguments of "if we break it we bought it" are irrelevant, if they don't want us to buy it, which is what seems to be the case.

7/14/2007 11:44:57 PM

^ We were discussing that at work today. Right now, estimates for getting both our troops and our non-permanent equipment out of Iraq run at about the two year mark. Not to mention the fact that you'll have massive convoys rolling south out of Iraq along the only main north-south road and they will be a huge target for insurgents.

7/16/2007 8:43:24 AM

RE: ^

Quote :

"When it comes, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and the dismantling of the vast American presence here promises to be as risky and unpredictable an ordeal as the past four years of war . . . The 20 ground combat brigades deployed here will fill 10,000 flatbed trucks and will take a year to move, logistics experts say. A full withdrawal, shipping home some 200,000 Americans and thousands of tons of equipment, dismantling dozens of American bases and disposing of tons of accumulated toxic waste, will take 20 months or longer, they estimate. "We don't have the plan in detail yet. We're seriously engaged in trying to figure this out," said Marine Brig. Gen. Gray Payne, director of the U.S. Central Command's logistics operations center. Even with the benefit of a detailed plan, Payne said, "this is going to be an enormous challenge." Extricating combat forces during an active war is a tricky military maneuver under the best of circumstances, according to interviews with senior military officers and dozens of tactical and strategic military planners and logistics experts in Iraq and at U.S. military facilities across the region. A hastier departure could find military convoys stalled on roads cratered by roadside bombs, interrupted by blown bridges and clogged with fleeing refugees; heavy cargo planes jammed with troops could labor into skies dark with smoke rising from abandoned American bases."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.withdraw15jul15,1,1269700.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

7/16/2007 4:51:36 PM

Quote :

"... disposing of tons of accumulated toxic waste ..."

we leave the toxic waste, so we can have pretext for future invasions as needed. you know, preventative war to thwart their potential to make dirty bombs.

what?

it wont be any different than invading them to rout out the WMDs that Reagan had Rumsfeld sell them back in the '80s

7/16/2007 6:37:28 PM