Cracks in the Glass - Peloski speaks agaisnt Obama

[OriginalWheelman]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7914061.stm

President Barack Obama is due to announce the withdrawal of most US troops in Iraq by August 2010.

In a speech later, he is expected to confirm that the US "combat mission" in Iraq will officially end by that time.

He is also expected to say that up to 50,000 of the 142,000 troops will stay in Iraq after that date to advise Iraqi forces and protect American interests.

Some Democrats are concerned that the timetable may fall short of his election vow to withdraw troops.

Mr Obama had said previously that he would completely pull out troops within 16 months of taking the top job.

Earlier this month, he ordered the deployment of up to 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan.

The president said the soldiers had been due to go to Iraq but were being redirected to "meet urgent security needs"

A senior administration official told reporters that Mr Obama will announce that "our combat mission will end on 31 August, 2010".

"At that point, the US forces remaining in Iraq will undertake a new mission, a more limited mission," he said on condition of anonymity.

The force, sized "at around 35-50,000" soldiers, will train, equip and advise Iraqi troops, protect US civilian and military interests and conduct "targeted counter-terrorism operations".

So Obama decides to take a median approach to the pull out, the reaction?

Speaking before Mr Obama briefed Congressional leaders about the plan on Thursday, Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi said 50,000 troops seemed too many for a residual force and needed to be justified.

[HashiriyaS14]

We need a sizable residual force to keep the place from collapsing. Obama is probably listening to Petraeus as I figured he would. Pelosi needs to shut it.

[OriginalWheelman]

Agreed.

[szh]

Agreed.

Yes, but Pelosi is incapable of shutting up when she needs to.

Z

[OriginalWheelman]

Yes, but Pelosi is incapable of shutting up when she needs to.

Z

If there's anyone who ever needed a mute button, it's her.

[BusyBadger]

Clapping Nancy needs to pull her head out of her fourth point of contact and stick it in a history book...

While I've always been of the opinion that Afghanistan should have been the primary mission and completely sewn up before we started any other action I do realize that sooner or later Iraq was something the US needed to take care of. The US was responsible for putting Saddam in the position he was in. As long as he was our little thug that could give a bloody nose to Iran it was ok, but once we lost control of him there were some problems. We would eventually need to clean up our mess.

The problem though is that The Taliban , through religious & political means and AQ through insurgent means are in a position to exert a tremendous amount of pressure and influence on Pakistan. I'd much rather have dealt with situations so closely tied to a member of the nuclear club than with Iraq, which to my mind seemed much more like a bad breakup than anything else. Saddam was no fan of AQ, (aside from the 9/11 attack) as Saddam was a Sunni and AQ is mainly a Shia faction, I doubt the two of them were very close. Add to that Saddam's lifestyle and he'd have good reason to keep them out of Iraq. Yes, I know - 20/20 hindsight.

The reason and timing don't matter now.The problem though is that now thanks to the US, Iraq has nowhere near the military capacity they used to and should we withdraw they'll be faced with an increasingly bold Iran with whom they had 8 year war. We can't completely withdraw and expect everything will be ok.

That's just one potential scenario from my limited scope, I am sure there are plenty of others that the suits in Langley have come up with.