The More Things Change . . . Posted by Michael Cohen

The day after Labor Day is always a little bittersweet for me - after all it's the traditional end of Summer. But I'm pleased to report that when I woke up this morning not only was the sun still shining, but when I read the New York Times headline, "Bush In Iraq Says Troop Reduction is Possible" I saw that the President is still lying about Iraq.  Ah, everything is still right in the world!

As we all know, the President went to Iraq yesterday in order to hear directly from Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker about the situation in Anbar province. Of course, this was not a PR stunt - heaven forbid!  However, after his consultations with Crocker and Petraeus, the President said the two men,

Tell me that if the kind of success we are now seeing here continues it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces.

I'll leave aside the highly dubious assertion (i.e. bald-faced lie) that the US is seeing any real success in Iraq, but here's the real punchline to the story:

Mr. Bush did not say how large a troop withdrawal was possible. Nor did he say whether he envisioned any forces being withdrawn sooner than next spring, when the first of the additional 30,000 troops Mr. Bush sent to Iraq this year are scheduled to come home anyway.

So basically what we have here is the President saying that maybe there will be a drawdown in troops if the practically non-existent success on the security front continues, but we're not going to provide any specific information on when and how many troops might be brought home and, oh yeah, it might actually coincide with an already planned drawdown in the Spring and of course this has nothing to do with the debate in Congress on troop reductions or giving political cover to Republicans who might be getting antsy about the situation in Iraq.

I think I'll go back to sleep . . .

Comments

[SteveB]

it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces.

Well, given that the "level of security" we're currently "maintaining" in Iraq is zero, could we do that with fewer forces?

I think we could.

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Mr. Bush did not say how large a troop withdrawal was possible.

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