Vet Journalist: Declare Victory in Iraq, and then Exit

[katinmn]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000770623
Declare Victory in Iraq, and then Exit, Says Joe Galloway
The KR columnist and Bronze Star winner takes a brave break from the conventional wisdom of his peers.

By Greg Mitchell

(February 01, 2005) -- No one can accuse Joe Galloway of being anti-military, "French," or unpatriotic (although some may try. Few reporters speak more convincingly of loving the men and women in uniform. Now a special correspondent and columnist for Knight Ridder, he served four tours in Vietnam and was the only civilian awarded the Bronze Star during that war, for rescuing wounded American soldiers. He's covered numerous conflicts since, including the Gulf War and, as an embed, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also co-authored the acclaimed book We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. So when he says the United States should declare victory in Iraq and start to withdraw, it has a certain credibility.

When I talked to Galloway by telephone in mid-January, he was in Colorado about to head home to Virginia after several days of maneuvers with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment from Fort Carson, which is shipping out to Iraq in a few weeks. It was a week after his Jan. 5 column advocating a pullout moved on the KR wire.

"When I go to Walter Reed Hospital," he explains, "where some of the 10,000 wounded from Iraq end up, I go ward to ward and bed to bed, and reach out to shake a hand, and someone puts a stump in it. These are the best kids we've ever had in the military and this is the best Army and Marine Corps I've seen in my 40 years of marching with them. And I tell you, this war is not worth one of their lives, let alone 1,400 of them."
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[Inland]

1. My prediction: February 7

Bush is going to declare victory and start bringing troops home.

[Zenlitened]

2. That's exactly what I'm expecting to happen.

Not long after the "elections," Bush (actually, Cheney and Rumsfeld) herds the troops into a few well-defended bases, the rest of the country becomes a free-fire zone. Heck, that's practically the situation now, except Bush is still trying to maintain the illusion that some cities are under US control.