US adjusting to longer, more difficult fight in Iraq

[Barrett808]

US adjusting to longer, more difficult fight in Iraq
by Jim Mannion

WASHINGTON (AFP) - With no end in sight to the rising violence in Iraq, the United States is uneasily adjusting for a longer, more difficult fight that could tie down US ground forces for three more years.

General George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, served notice in Washington this week that levels of violence in Iraq have never been higher and are likely to stay high for some time.

Bringing it under control, he told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday, "is going to be a long-term process. It's not going to be something that we're going to get done quickly."

The bleak outlook is fueling intense election year pressures for a change in course in Iraq.

With an increasingly bipartisan clamor for an exit strategy, President George W. Bush said at a press conference Wednesday that he agreed completely with the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee that "if the plan is now not working ... America needs to adjust."

Bush said he told Casey he strongly supported his plan to pacify Baghdad.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061012/pl_afp/usiraqmilitarybush

[JuniperLea]

1. When do we get to know why we are there? .eom.

[kenny blankenship]

6. Or why a 6month fling turned into a 10 year commitment?

[kenny blankenship]

8. and will there be another 600,000 killed in the next 4 years?

Is our extended stay through 2010 based on predictions that the death toll of the past 3 years will continue for the next 4 (and the next 4, and the next 4 after that) or is our longterm occupation all predicated on the killing slowing down to a stop?
And if it is predicated on peaceful conditions emerging during that time, what pray tell is supposed to bring those peaceful conditions about? Killing until there's no one left to kill?

[Karenina]

13. Offerred without comment

[grytpype]

7. Classified, sorry

[Solly Mack]

2. Exactly who is adjusting? Those not doing the dying?

Those without family and loved ones directly involved?

Who exactly is adjusting?

And how can anyone with a conscience "adjust" to this tragedy????... uneasily or otherwise????

[katinmn]

5. That's just the media lying again.

[Solly Mack]

9. I know - but it really irks me at times

though sadly, I DO think many Americans are adjusting....them and their damn illusions.

[katinmn]

10. Those kinds of lies are very harmful.

Some people take them at face value, some use it to validate their support for the neocons.

[rodeodance]

3. hey-----I am NOT adjusting

[acmavm]

4. Does anyone seriously believe that the American people,

even the most brain-dead bush supporting ass kissing cretins amongst us, will tolerate THREE MORE YEARS of this shit?

We will not only have run out of troops, but money (China is going to cut the purse strings one of these days and ammo.

[atreides1]

11. In one word, YES

Especially the "most brain-dead bush supporting ass kissing cretins amongst us"


What can they do? Unless the Democrats take back both houses of the Congress, men and women in uniform will suffer the brunt of this policy.

The only ones who can save the military from this fate, is the military!

[carzen]

12. willful partisan blindness is all too common in america

[central scrutinizer]

14. Why does Gen. Casey hate America so much?

Why is he not spreading the stories of good news?