Administration battles Warner on troop drawdown

Everyone understands by now that we should have started with more troops than we did and that they should have stayed there until Iraq was pacified. (Don't ask me where we would have gotten the troops, but clearly we needed to start with more than we did.)

That said, any surge needs to continue until the enemy believes we can sustain it.

We can't. We know we can't. Our military people are saying we can't. And guess what? The enemy knows we can't. Not without a DRAFT - and I don't mean a beer.

So Bush is late in arriving at the right policy; and he's not fooling anyone with his position.

Maliki is working with the Iranians. He has his own "out." If he is "removed," he will go to Iran and blame the U.S. So we better have our NEXT dictator ready to replace him.

Meet our NEW if not improved Saddam Hussein.

FOX News is reporting that the Bush administration has gotten to Gen. Pace and that he won't be recommending a drastic troop drawdown next year. We apparently have enough troops to keep everyone in place until we secure Iraq and capture Osama bin Laden - along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Through its subordinates, Fox is also stressing that Warner will not vote against the president in September or any time soon. He is only suggesting a strategy to drawdown 5000 troops to pressure the Maliki government.

Finaly, FOX NEWS.com is promoting an exclusive interview with presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, featuring a picture of someone who looks a lot like Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.

It's a must-see website.

It's so absolutely crystal clear where this is going.

The Petraeus report is absolutely irrelevant. It's not even written by Petraeus, it's written by the WH. Petraeus will say what he is told to say.

Bush will withdraw 30,000 troops, the surge numbers, over the next year, starting in the spring, to avoid having to extend tours to 18 months or implement a draft.

The remaining 130,000 troops will continue in Iraq until Bush leaves office. The next president, whoever that is, will be running for a second term the minute he/she takes the oath and will be too terrified to withdraw more than a token number of additional troops, that is a few thousand.

Our first opportunity to reduce troops below 130,000 will come if the new President wins a second term....and that's a long shot. More likely, we'll be spending trillions and our blood on the Iraqis for decades.

The Bush administration will move Maliki out and substitute somebody else
then claim that they had to extend the US occupation to help the new leader stabilize his administration.

We will spend another several trillion dollars on the Iraquis, courtesy not only of the Republicans but also of the Democrats, who will not have the political courage to withdraw from Iraq, even minimally.

Saddam Hussein was never anywhere being an imminent, credible threat to the U.S. and it was a huge mistake to go into Iraq to begin with.

But there we are.

We need to draw down from Iraq in an orderly way leaving an extensive intelligence gathering capability and a robust special operations force to act when needed.

Anything less is just prolonging the inevitable.

And the long awaited Patraeous report will say:
"We are making great progress> We just need more time. So what if they don't have a government.
We need to stop the spread of communism in that part of the world !
If we leave now they will start killing each other...
We will have to fight them on the streets of Toledo and Grand Rapids. After all, what's another half a trillion dollars and a few thousand more lives of 20 year olds. " Heck of a job, dubya"..........DUH !

After the U.S. leaves, Iraq will become a Islamic fundamendalist nation. When Iraq falls, the Gulf States will follow. After that, Saudi Arabia. When we lose our main source of oil, the US will be devastated economically and the Islamic fundamendalist will win. The burden of proof is on the liberals to prove this will not happen...

When I tweaked Paulo the other day on a Repub (as opposed to one of his DemocRATS) asking for troop withdrawls, he rationalized by saying 5,000 troops was no big deal. Guess the Administration reads it different.

Bush has gotten us into such a mess that it will take awhile to reverse. The long lasting effects this idiot has caused with his lies will last for decades. If we do decide to stay the course we need the draft and more body bags because we will be there for a long, long time.

After the U.S. leaves, Iraq will become a Islamic fundamendalist nation. When Iraq falls, the Gulf States will follow. After that, Saudi Arabia. When we lose our main source of oil, the US will be devastated economically and the Islamic fundamendalist will win. The burden of proof is on the liberals to prove this will not happen...

Posted by: Dan | August 25, 2007 10:14 AM

Ladies and Gentlemen back from the ash heap of history I give you :

The Domino Theory.

from the mouth of satin himself

"Because if we'd gone to Baghdad, we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us — it would have been a US occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world.

And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it…uh…the Syrians would like to have in the West. Part of the eastern part of Iraq the Iranians would like to claim, fought over it for eight years. In the north, you've got the Kurds. If the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a…it's a quagmire, if you go that far in trying to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Uh…everyone was impressed with that fact that…uh…we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the President in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got that right."

Why doesn't the Tribune report on the Iraqis' experience -- i.e., getting bombed daily? Fewer and fewer believe Bush's Ministry of Fear propaganda, and no one will buy the
We're almost at a Vietnam-war-level success line. IMPEACH THE IDIOT.

Does anyone remember Saturday Night Live's recurring, "Toonces, the car driving cat? In these skits Toonces was able to somehow 'convince' his owners into letting him drive the family car. These skits always ended with everyone screaming as the car plunged (already burning) over a conveniently placed cliff.

Bush is Americas Toonces (more specifically, the Republican Toonces) who has inexplicably convinced (despite demonstrating a spectacular incompetence) a large minority of the American people that he can manage a war.

But is it really Bush's fault? I mean, was it Toonces fault he kept driving over a cliff? He was a freeking CAT!

When wondering who's responsible for all the Americans that have died over in Iraq, don't blame Bush, he's just a moron. He doesn’t know he can't do it.

The United States of America is a government OF the people BY the people.Senator Warner is an elected representative who is sharing his constituents opinions. Since the vast majority of Americans want to leave Iraq, we should leave. Period.

When will we wake up and stop "but-ting"? We lied, struch first, screwed uo big time, depleted the national treasury, killed hundreds of thousands, and are now wringing our hands as to the next "Move"! Get out!, admit the mistake, and swear to never (for the umpteenth time) do it again - maybe then we can rejoin the rest of the world in combatting some real problems!

What kind of pressure is the reduction of 5000 soldiers going to arouse?

"When we lose our main source of oil, the US will be devastated economically..."
Posted by: Dan | August 25, 2007 10:14 AM

Well, at least you have the guts to tell the truth about why we are in this mess. But, "Islamic Fundamentalism" is only an excuse, or a fear factor tool being used to fool you in supporting what was supposed to be a corporate feeding frenzy.

Iran and Iraq have a history of fairly recent conflict but if Maliki consolidates his power, the Sunnis will be
basically chased out of most of Iraq and Iraq will become a compantion Shia nation to Iran , with all that implies including an upsurge in Islamic fundalmentalism.

Iran wants Maliki to stay in power and will likely do all it can to keep him there. The US president, Dem or Republican, will be forced to either invade Iran or put even more troops into Iraq to prevent this from happening. It may be too late already.

The Dems are SO clueless.
Instead of talking about how the surge is working, they need to do everything
they can to get us out of Iraq now, with the assumption that they will be in charge in 2009. Who cares if Iraq becomes a fundamentalist state. If they don't, the Dems will be forced to ratchet up the war big time in the face of increasing Iranian influence....that means a draft, among other things.
How ironic. Looks like the Dems will be the ones calling for a draft in 2009.

Yes, Iraq will return to fundamentalist Islam. Clearly we cannot change that. We must accept that Islam is NOT COMPATIBLE with civilization and let the Muslims get back to teaching their children to hate and kill. The only hope for the civilized world to to quarantine Muslim countries and just let them self-destruct.

A Republican chicken hawk war, started by chicken hawks, supported by Republican chicken hawks in Congress, has now painted the US into a corner. We unleashed all that carnage in Iraq and now Fearless Leader says we can't leave because the carnage will get even worse, which it probably will. Withdrawal is inevitable, no matter how long it takes, and the Iraqi people are willing to outlast us and they will. Whether we are there another 18 months or 18 years, we have destroyed Iraq as a functioning secular Arab state and we will all live with those consequences for at least another generation. It is unlikely that the US will ever recover its standing in the world as a moral force for good. Thanks, Republicans.

David,

"The only hope for the civilized world to to quarantine Muslim countries and just let them self-destruct."

You're nuts.

Ralph Peters in the NY Post (www.nypost.com) effectively refutes Sen. Warner's
musings under the title
"SENATOR WARNER'S BAD WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS". Peters is in Iraq and reports on what our troops over there are saying.

Needless to say, no reporter for the Swamp will ever interview Ralph Peters.

Whatever happened to advice and consent from Congress. Instead, twin shots are fired.

One more time folks - Hussein had Iraq under control. He was probably the only opponent of ours that was SANE ENOUGH to not do anything to lose control of his country. But cheneywolfierummie knew better, and now we have this mess. Had we not entered Iraq, this would be a mere academic exercise. Instead, we are counting the dead and wounded Americans as they return from an illegal occupation. We, people, are hosed. Peace in the middle east? That's hilarious! Earboy thinks he's going to do that? It has NEVER happened? Ever. Not since we first started making tolls from rocks. We are hosed. Compliments of the president and his chief mouthpiece chimpy.

Tim, can you please provide examples of the U.S. "bombing the Iraqi people daily"? Or are you one of those who believe the suicide bombs are via the U.S.?

And did you have outrage when we were actually bombing Iraq on a near daily basis back in the 1990s, during the Clinton presidency?