No Way Out? (Iraq - Don't believe WH that troops will come home)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6524206/site/newsweek/

Lame-duck Secretary of State Colin Powell can expect a pretty cool reception when he shows up on the warm shores of the Red Sea next week for a conference of Iraq’s neighbors. “Why don’t we just call the whole thing off?” suggests a member of one Gulf Arab delegation. There are hard questions to be addressed, and every party there is vitally concerned with stabilizing the region. But Powell is hardly the guy to give credible answers these days. “What’s he going to do?” asks Mr. Gulf, “Serve coffee?”

The U.S.-anointed Iraqi government will be meeting in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, with every country on Iraq’s borders, and the G8 club of the world’s most industrialized countries will be providing its patronage. But Powell can’t give them a convincing answer to the most important question on most of their minds: does the United States ever intend to leave Iraq? And, if so, when? How?

You might think you’ve heard the answer. On the eve of the U.S. elections, Powell himself categorically denied stories that the Pentagon is building 14 permanent military bases in Iraq. “Our goal is to assist the Iraqi people to have elections, to write a constitution, to put in place a fully legitimate government that rests on that constitution … and then to bring our troops out,” he told Egyptian television. President George W. Bush hit the same note in his acceptance speech, after winning re-election: “We will help the emerging democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan——so they can grow in strength and defend their freedom. And then our servicemen and women will come home with the honor they have earned.”

But there’s nothing on the drawing boards, in fact, to suggest Iraq can defend its freedom if our servicemen and women come home. Not now, not next year, and possibly not for generations to come. Ever since the old Iraqi Army was dissolved by the Americans last year, the country has been dependent on the United States for its national defense.