US plans to reduce Iraq force to 80,000 by mid-2006

[tocqueville]

report 1 hour, 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States plans to reduce its troop levels in Iraq to 80,000 soldiers by the middle of next year and to a maximum of 60,000 by the end of 2006.

The Defence Department has drawn up a force reduction plan, Newsweek magazine said Sunday, quoting two officials who took part in the work.

There are currently about 140,000 American troops in Iraq.

The plan would tie in with a force reduction laid out in a British Defence Ministry memo leaked to media last month. It said Washington hoped to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 of 18 Iraqi provinces by early 2006, allowing it to slash overall US-led troop levels to 66,000 from 176,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050731/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary

[Old and In the Way]

1. Flippity-Flop

I'm sure I remember our Maximum Leader telling us no more than a few weeks ago that there could be no timetable on withdrawals, as that would give encouragement to the enemy. Is George aware of this?

[Oerdin]

5. NPR reported this a month ago.

NPR reported this a month ago. According to NPR they've run out of reserve and national guard units to activate and they can't resend this grounds for a second or third time unless Congress changes the law regarding the duration reserve/guard soldiers can be involuntarily called up. Since Congressional elections are not that far away Congress will not be changing anything and Cheney will be forced to cut the numbers even as the situation continues to worsen. Expect Republicans to declare the war is won and it's time to go home even though every fact points out they're lying.

What's worse is you can expect ignorant red staters to believe that line completely.

[Imagevision]

2. The US. promised armor to the troops months ago and it still hasn't

happened. Troop withdrawal? - Bottomline is it's still up to the com,andrs on the ground, all this Rumsfeld spin on troop withdrawals is nothing but spin - Rove needs all the help/news he can get to take the limelight off him and Libby!!

[wli]

3. the thugs breaking up WTO demonstrations have better armor

There is a reason for this.

[Oerdin]

6. Imagevision

Imagevision: Sorry mate but you have no idea what you're talking about.

[HereSince1628]

4. They said they'd be mostly withdrawn months after the invasion

Just to remind everyone of Paul Wolfowitz's dreaming.

Reducing troop strength as a sound military policy is contingent on so many "if's" being met that even Cokie (sp?) Roberts thinks they'll need a good fairy to make it happen.

On the otherhand reducing troop strength as a decision to manipulate public opinion in order to help R's in the 2006 election is well within Rove's capacity.