Here's Petraeus again, promising a future withdrawal from Iraq before a U.S. election

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Petraeus: Troops May Leave Baghdad Next Summer


Financial Times September 3, 2008 02:58 PM -- General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said declining violence in Baghdad raised the possibility that American combat troops could leave the capital by next summer.

Asked in an interview with the Financial Times whether it was feasible that US combat forces could leave Baghdad by July, he said: "Conditions permitting, yeah."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fcfd348c-798c-11dd-bb93-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1



Yeah? Fat chance . . . He promises this every election season. Here he is September 2006:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/22/petraeus-security-withdraw/



In his Congressional testimony in September (2006), Gen. David Petraeus announced that he would soon begin to withdraw 30,000 troops from Iraq, stating that progress due to the escalation permitted a reduction to “pre-surge” levels by next summer:

Based on all this and on the further progress we believe we can achieve over the next few months, I believe that we will be able to reduce our forces to the pre-surge level of brigade combat teams by next summer without jeopardizing the security gains that we have fought so hard to achieve.

In multiple public interviews after his testimony, Petraeus vowed to bring the 30,000 troops home by next summer. “What I showed on Capitol Hill…will take place,” he said on PBS. “Starting in mid-December and then ending in mid-July, the five Army brigade combat teams and two Marine battalions will redeploy,” he said in an interview with Fox News.


but, in 2007 he reneges: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/petraeus-to-offer-token-withdrawal-of-troops-in-pivotal-report-on-war-in-iraq-401892.html


"General Petraeus is expected to offer the token withdrawal of 4,000 or so troops starting in January while dangling the prospect of further pull-outs later on."

In a letter to all US forces at the weekend, General Petraeus gave some flavour of what he will tell Congress today: The surge, he said, "has not worked out as we had hoped." But he claimed that the US has made significant gains in recent months. "The number of attacks across the country has declined in eight of the past 11 weeks, reaching during the last week in August a level not seen since June 2006."

General Petraeus will also tell Congress that he needs to keep the extra 30,000 combat troops he was given this year . . .


cretins

[barbtries]

1. lying sack of shit

THEY ALL make me so goddam sick and tired.

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2. .

[Wilber_Stool]

3. It's a fraud.

For every solider they take out, another mercenary goes in. No net loss.