Pentagon Having Second Thoughts On Iraq Withdrawal

[Keith Bee]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Eight months shy of its deadline for pulling the last American soldier from Iraq and closing the door on an 8-year war, the Pentagon is having second thoughts.

Reluctant to say it publicly, officials fear a final pullout in December could create a security vacuum, offering an opportunity for power grabs by antagonists in an unresolved and simmering Arab-Kurd dispute, a weakened but still active al-Qaida or even an adventurous neighbor such as Iran.

The U.S. wants to keep perhaps several thousand troops in Iraq, not to engage in combat but to guard against an unraveling of a still-fragile peace. This was made clear during Defense Secretary Robert Gates' visit Thursday and Friday in which he and the top U.S. commander in Iraq talked up the prospect of an extended U.S. stay.

How big a military commitment might the U.S. be willing to make beyond 2011? "It just depends on what the Iraqis want and what we're able to provide and afford," Gates said Thursday at a U.S. base in the northern city of Mosul where U.S. soldiers advise and mentor Iraqi forces. He said the U.S. would consider a range of possibilities, from staying an extra couple of years to remaining in Iraq as permanent partners.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/10/pentagon-iraq-withdrawal-timeline_n_847154.html

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If those last six words don't make you physically ill, you're a better person than I.

[msongs]

1. silly me, and here I thought the commander in chief made those decisions nt

[Autumn]

2. I'm fucking done

no more.

[Keith Bee]

17. If Obama let's this shit go down, me too

I've been arguing against a primary challenge to him since I arrived here, BUT, if he starts talking about troops after 12/31/11, I am open to suggestions.

[ProSense]

3. "If the Iraqis choose not to ask for more help, then Dec. 31 probably will mark the end..."

<...>

If the Iraqis choose not to ask for more help, then Dec. 31 probably will mark the end of U.S. military intervention that was so close to failing when Gates became Pentagon chief in December 2006. He once said the U.S. faced the prospect of a "strategic disaster" at the heart of the Middle East.

<...>

There are now about 47,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, less than one-third the total at the peak of the war four years ago.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading skeptic of the Obama administration's plan to turn over the Iraq mission to the State Department in January, has called this a formula for failure. Graham, R-S.C., says the U.S. needs to keep at least 10,000 troops in Iraq into 2012.

"If we're not smart enough to work with the Iraqis to have 10,000 to 15,000 American troops in Iraq in 2012, Iraq could go to hell," Graham said on CBS's "Face the Nation" on April 4. He said it was imperative that the U.S. remain to "make sure Iran doesn't interfere with the Iraqi sovereignty" and to help develop an Iraq that emerged from decades of oppressive rule by Saddam Hussein with no army, a crippled economy and a corrupted political order.

<...>

More media grabbing headlines to promote Republican talking points.

[tonybgood]

11. what, they can't waste some more taxpayer money and hire a private security firm?

[Keith Bee]

20. Insurance

[tonybgood]

12. on a sidebar

hey Lindsey Graham, how about we bring the troops home from the last ACTUAL DECLARED WAR this country had. We still have troops in Germany and Japan. When do they come home???!!!

[SidDithers]

21. Well, it is HuffPo...nt

Sid

[Keith Bee]

22. Loved you on SCTV, man!

Eugene Levy also played Sammy Maudlin, if memory serves. :-)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. We will never get out, until we're thrown out

Whenever we pull out, in eight months or eight years or eighty years, the government will be too weak, too corrupt to stand on its own.

We hanged the only person who could keep a lid on that country.

[Fuddnik]

5. Nobody could have ever saw that coming.

After all the denials about building PERMANENT military bases there years ago.

I'm just totally fucking shocked! Shocked!

[brandywine]

6. The formula is simple... IF there's still significant quantities of oil, STAY, else, LEAVE

With our reactors poisoning the planet, we will need the oil NOW, more than ever.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. would consider a range of possibilities

I wish they would come in to my range, I would show them a possibility.

[Keith Bee]

18. Wh-Whut???

:eyes:

[bemildred]

8. Dithering again are they? nt

[Arlene McCarthy]

9. Can anyone

Really be surprised. The war machine goes on and on.

Arlene Marie McCarthy LGBT Activist

Oceania was always at war with East Asia

[PSPS]

10. Translation: ExxonMobil Having Second Thoughts On Iraq Withdrawal

[Jefferson23]

13. Should I stay or should I go?

always tease tease tease....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Gn0e7kvTA

[madrchsod]

14. an iran iraq peace treaty scares the shit out of the saudi`s

[Historic NY]

15. Its time to turn out the lights and go.

[Hubert Flottz]

16. What about the fucking deficit?

They want to stay until all the social security funds are spent on the wat that never should have been fought.

[Keith Bee]

19. Haven't you heard the sage words of Darth Dick?

Deficits don't matter. (Well, as long as there's a neoconned fool in the White House whom Lord Cheney can manipulate.)

[Octafish]

23. We'll leave when Iraq runs out of gas.

Should be about 2041 or so.