Bushists trying to pretend they're not cutting and running

[BurtWorm]

...

The New York Times reported that Casey has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in Iraq with the number of American combat brigades projected to decrease to five or six from the current level of 14 by the end of 2007.

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Asked about that report, Bush confirmed that he met with Casey on Friday and that "we talked about a lot of things."

"In terms of our troop presence there, that decision will be made by Gen. Casey as well as the sovereign government of Iraq, based upon conditions on the ground," Bush said.

...

"The challenges that he talked about are very real and somewhat unpredictable," said Whitman. "And because of that, there's going to need to be a certain amount of flexibility that the commander has, to adjust forces over time."

"There should not be hard and fast timetables associated with our force adjustments," said Whitman. "The commanders on the ground need the flexibility to be able to adjust the troop levels based on the conditions that exist."


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[BurtWorm]

1. Tony Snow's denial

Question: Tony, you had Democrats over the weekend -- Sen. Kerry, Sen. Boxer -- saying that even the framework of a plan would kind of fly in the face of Republican the Democrats want to cut and run. Do you have any response to that? I mean, the president, himself, has implied it, Rove has said it outright.

Snow: There's still a pretty significant difference between what Sen. Kerry or even Sen. Levin had proposed and what Gen. Casey is talking about, simply because one is driven by a calendar and the other is driven by events on the ground. So there is a significant difference.

Question: But doesn't Gen. Casey -- like, part one of his plan has a significant number of troops, two combat brigades, coming out in September. Doesn't that give the enemy --

Snow: Well, actually, he has one, and it -- you know, again, this is not, I believe the way, at least it was reported, is you've got two brigades by the end of the year, September being short of the end of the year. But I may be misreading it. In any event, you've got to keep in mind that this is not a statement of policy. Again, Gen. Casey keeps in mind a number of scenarios. You're talking about scenarios here ... And so I would caution very strongly against everybody thinking, well, they're going to pull two brigades out. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. That really does depend upon a whole series of things that we cannot, at this juncture, predict. But Gen. Casey -- again, I would characterize this more in terms of scenario building, and we'll see how it proceeds.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. Of course they'll have to try and save some face...

...We certainly don't need a repeat of the fall of Saigon. I think "Fall of Baghdad" could be a future Time Magazine cover story with a picture like this if we don't withdraw from this illegal occupation fairly soon.