Democrats start US Iraq withdrawal in 4-6 months

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/November/focusoniraq_November112.xml§ion=focusoniraq&col=

WASHINGTON - Democrats, who won majorities in the US Congress in last week’s elections, said on Sunday they will push for a phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq to begin in four to six months.

‘The first order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy,’ said Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is expected to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the new Congress.

Levin, on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ said he hoped some Republicans would emerge to join Democrats and press the administration of President George W. Bush to tell the Iraqi government that US presence was ‘not open-ended.’

Bush has insisted that US troops would not leave Iraq until the Iraqis were able to take over security for their country.

‘We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,’ Levin said.

[RC]

1. MORE: Panel will spell demise of the Bush doctrine

Panel will spell demise of the Bush doctrine

Michael Gawenda Herald Correspondent in Washington
November 13, 2006


A COMMISSION of experts appointed by George Bush will advise the US President to abandon his dream of cementing a democratic system in Iraq and instead tackle the security crisis so US troops can start to withdraw.

The advice from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel headed by James Baker, a former Republican secretary of state, will sideline the so-called Bush doctrine of spreading democracy in the Middle East. Mr Bush will meet the panel today and Tony Blair is expected to offer his views via a video-conference call tomorrow.

The day after "Iraq war fatigue" cost his Republican Party control of Congress, Mr Bush announced he was replacing Donald Rumsfeld as defence secretary with Robert Gates, a former CIA chief.

Mr Gates is a member of the Iraq group and has been a strong critic of his predecessor's handling of policy there and the use of prewar intelligence. He will provide the White House with the political cover for changes that would have been unthinkable a few months ago.

<MORE>
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/panel-will-spell-demise-of-the-bush-doctrine/2006/11/12/1163266411964.html


I did notice it is now Bush or George Bush or Mr. Bush and not President Bush or even Mr. President

[judy]

2. Withdrawing troops means nothing...

if it isn't preceded with stopping the profiteering and returning reconstruction contracts to Iraqi companies exclusively.
I am sounding like a broken record, but everywhere, I hear that the Iraq quagmire is unsolvable, etc.
War profiteering has created more unemployment and hatred, has done more to ignite sectarian fighting, than the invasion and the occupation itself.
In 3 years, and after billions and billions, the infrastructure is still non existent, and there are still no jobs for Iraqis. It is a huge scandal. War profiteering is illegal according to international law, and pulling all these no-bid contracts should be the first priority of the new Congress. Such a move, would go a long way toward establishing a new found good will, and would allow for an easier pulling of the troops later on.
Also, if the Iraqis are working on rebuilding their country (at a fraction of the huge costs of Halliburton, KBR etc.) they will have less time to wage civil war against each other.

Remember: for the profiteers, the Iraq war has been a huge success! If they don't get pulled first, there is no solution indeed...

[shadowknows69]

3. And what do we do

When George says no.

[judy]

4. Shadow, if we go as far as the point where George has to say no,

we will be in good shape.
My worry is more that we won't even start on that path, and keep on arguing about more troops/less troops til Baghdad is nothing but a smoldering mound of depleted uranium, not to mention the rest of the Middle East. I guess the profits won't be so high by then, if that's any consolation.

[shadowknows69]

6. I fear you're right Judy

n/t

[slaveplanet]

5. I'm not so sure this is all coming from the democrats

Seems the British have their own Ideas about how things will happen, and they've already begun the phase down:

The Times November 10, 2006


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2446744,00.html

However, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, sought to play down the impact of both the Republicans’ mid-term election losses and the dismissal of Mr Rumsfeld. She said that it was unlikely that there would be a “major upheaval” of US policy in Iraq.

In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think-tank she said: “We will leave when they are confident that they can take the role of security in the country on their own shoulders”.

“I ask those who are calling for more precipitate action to consider the consequences of such action: we would be leaving the Iraqi Government without the means to prevent a further escalation in the violence, without the tools to enforce the rule of law and without the authority to prevent their country from turning into a base for terrorism.”

(more)


A new tone was set by President Bush. He said that he was open to ideas that would help the US to achieve its goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq’s democratic Government succeeded.

The plan being drawn up in Baghdad, with Washington’s approval, seeks a one-year extension of the UN mandate for foreign forces in Iraq.

But it also states that by December 2007, security in the country’s 18 provinces, apart from the most violent, be handed over to the Iraqi Army and police. US and British troops would play a support role.

The process has already begun in the South, where British forces have handed over two provinces this summer and hope to complete the transfer of a third by the year end.

British military sources said that the downfall of Mr Rumsfeld had given the coalition a golden opportunity to “rebrand” its strategy in Iraq. Under his era at the Pentagon, one senior British official complained, there was “very little flexibility”.

The two key aims of the strategy, training the Iraqi Army to take over security and helping the Baghdad Government to spread its influence throughout the country, remained unaltered. But it would be possible now to make clear to the whole Middle East that US and British forces intended to leave Iraq and that the countdown had begun.