US To Begin Withdraw From Iraq Early Next Year?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, The World, WarAt least that’s what the top US commander in Iraq is saying.
More from the Financial Times:
General George Casey said the US could make fairly substantial reductions after the referendum on a new constitution scheduled for October and the election of a new leader in December.“If the political process continues to go positively, if the developments with the [Iraqi] security forces continue to go as it is going, we will still be able to make fairly substantial reductions after these elections, in the spring and summer of next year,” Gen Casey said. His comments came during a visit to Iraq by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, who urged Iraqis not to delay the political process.
Again, is this enough time to finish the job?
From what I’ve read over the past few months, the insurgency is growing stronger, not weaker. And the Iraqis we’ve trained aren’t ready to protect their country yet. I fear this could have the possibility of sparking a civil war.
Let’s hope we stay long enough to ensure the safety of Iraqi people.
We owe them that much.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 and is filed under The War On Terrorism, The World, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 28th, 2005 at 9:37 am
Mixed feelings on this.
On the up side, it’s encouraging to see that an Army general who’s actually on the ground in Iraq (and undoubtedly has a better view of where things stand vis-a-vis the insurgency than we at home do through news stories) is satisfied enough with the progress there to see fit to publicly talk about being able to turn the fight over to Iraqi authorities in a matter of months.
On the down side, now the whole world knows when we intend to start pulling out of Iraq – including the insurgents, whom I expect to ratchet up their campaign to full-throttle intensity once the Iraqi government takes the lead, in hopes of collapsing the government and forcing the U.S. and other coalition members to choose between letting Iraq sink into a bloodbath or re-entering the fray to restore the Iraqi government.
July 28th, 2005 at 10:06 am
See, I’ve never bought that meme from Bush. He says “We can’t set a timetable” and yet, when we decide to leave, we’re going to have to set a timetable. It’s going to be in the news. People will know.
It just feels like another example of them saying something idealistic because it sounds good to the public, and then doing another because it’s realistic.
July 28th, 2005 at 10:33 am
OK, I see your point, but still… telegraphing your intentions to your enemy several months in advance is never a sound tactic. Better to keep them guessing for as long as possible.
July 28th, 2005 at 11:29 am
On the other hand, at some point we have to tell the Iraqi security forces to wake up, get dressed, kick the gameboy to the back of the closet, hit the street and start looking for work — er, “insurgents”.
They can’t loaf around forever.
Seems to me that making parental noises and setting deadlines a few months down the road — at the end of the next semster, so to speak — is somewhat better than springing a ultimatum on them by surprise some random Monday morning.