Iraq War: Home in 2006?

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

The generals wouldn't try to deceive us, now would they?

Top U.S. general says troop withdrawal from Iraq possible in 2006 by Tom Lasseter and Mohammed al Dulaimy, Knight Ridder 07/27/05. So far, I'm not seeing anything that sounds very new to me.  Notice the conditions (my emphasis):

U.S. Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Wednesday that a significant drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq could start next year under the right conditions, on a day when the al-Qaida branch in Iraq claimed to have killed two Algerian diplomats kidnapped in the capital last week.

Also Wednesday, Iraqi police said they captured Hamdi Tantawi, a high-ranking Egyptian al-Qaida operative, south of Baghdad.

The developments underscored the extent to which the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden has made inroads into Iraq under U.S. occupation.

Casey said Wednesday that a "fairly substantial" withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq was possible next year in the spring or summer if two conditions were met: that Iraq's political process continued on track and that the insurgency didn't grow.

U.S.-Run Baghdad Regime Can't Last by Eric Margolis (Toronto Sun)  CommonDreams.org 07/31/05.  Margolis notes the conditions of having adequate security to take over the job of fighting the insurgency is a questionable one:

Iraqis don't enlist in the inept, U.S.-run army or police from patriotism. Iraq suffers 70% unemployment. Many recruits are thus unreliable, combat-adverse mercenaries who serve to feed their families, not fight. A recent leaked Pentagon report suggested as much. The regime's only effective Iraqi units are death squads, composed of former Baath regime toughs, outcasts, and released criminals.

Under present circumstances, U.S. efforts to get Iraqis to fight and die to defend the U.S.-run Baghdad regime willbe even less successful than was "Vietnamization" in the 1970s. In fact, Iraqi regime forces appear to be falling apart faster than they can be mobilized. Iraqization shows no sign of working. This means U.S. forces will have to remain indefinitely in Iraq to prop up the isolated, embattled pro-American regime -- just what's happening in that other failed war in Afghanistan.

George Bush's two wars cost $6.5 billion US monthly -- about the same cost as during Vietnam. Growing numbers of Republican moderates want out of Iraq. But neoconservatives are determined to hold onto Iraq and the Mideast at all costs.

Few in Washington are yet ready to face the alternative to occupation: Declare victory, retreat, and leave Iraq to its own devices.

Norman Solomon seems to be a bit skeptical : Operation Withdrawal Scam CommonDreams.org 08/01/05.

Overall, the strategy is double-barreled: Keep killing in Iraq while hyping scenarios for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

President Bush has always made a show of rejecting calls for a pullout timetable. Yet the current media buzz about possible withdrawal from Iraq is not without precedent. Some appreciable publicity along similar lines came last fall -- from a journalistic source who has eagerly done some of Karl Rove’s dirtiest work.

“Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year,” Robert Novak wrote in a column that appeared on Sept. 20, 2004. “This determination is not predicated on successin implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.”

Novak’s column did not stop there. With a matter-of-fact tone, it reported: “The military will tell the [U.S. presidential] election winner there are insufficient U.S. forces in Iraq to wage effective war. That leaves three realistic options: Increase overall U.S. military strength to reinforce Iraq, stay with the present strength to continue the war, or get out. Well-placed sources in the administration are confident Bush’s decision will be to get out. They believe that is the recommendation of his national security team and would be the recommendation of second-term officials.”

"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05