Green Eggs and Troop Withdrawal Posted by Heather Hurlburt

So President Bush says US troops will be in Iraq after his term ends.  He says that we are drawing them down proportionally as Iraqi troops are ready to "stand up."

Yet his Pentagon says that we will be out of the cities by the end of this year, and down to 100,000 troops or so by the fall elections.

Never mind ideology or preferred approaches to Iraq -- could someone please explain to me what he thinks those troops will be doing and where they will be doing it?  Not in the cities, not in place of Iraqi troops, not taking the lead to stop civil war, not in charge of rebuilding...

this is starting to remind me of Green Eggs and Ham.  (Not on a boat, not with a goat, not in the rain, not in a train... I will not eat them in a box, I will not eat them with a fox.)  And you remember how that ends...  ok, in case you don't, Sam comes to love green eggs and ham.  with nary a flash of embarrassment.

Comments

[Cal]

Maybe not rebuilding, but there's plenty of building going on:

In 2005-06, Washington has authorized or proposed almost $1 billion for U.S. military construction in Iraq, as American forces consolidate at Balad, known as Anaconda, and a handful of other installations, big bases under the old regime.

It looks like we're setting up luxury boxes to watch the civil war.

(BTW, our friend Gordon Adams is quoted in the article.)

[The Neighbouring Manatees]

Out of fire,
Into the pan,
Sat in the desert
Half-way to Iran.

[Owen]

Why would anyone believe that the Iraqi army will be "standing up" any time soon? We've heard that same phrase for 2 and 3/4 years.

Bush is lucky that Dems don't look beyond today's headlines for Iraq news, because if they really wanted to get our troops home and/or expose Bush and Rummy, they'd start taking the training of Iraqis seriously.

Yes, the army may be deteriorating into partisan death squads, but Dems should be forcing the administration to deal with that.