Military leaders foresee Iraq exit in 2016

[ECH1969]

U.S. war commanders think some level of American forces will be needed in Iraq until 2016 and those forces will receive continued support from the vast majority of Iraqis.

At the tactical level, the U.S. is getting better at detecting deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs), especially using unmanned spy planes. But the enemy is growing more sophisticated. A raid on an IED factory earlier this year netted two bomb-makers who hold master's degrees in chemistry and physics -- from U.S. colleges.

The seminar is just one example of how the Army is constantly re-examining how it conducts the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and worldwide. Insurgent infiltration of the Iraqi Security Forces is also a big problem. A Green Beret caught a police lieutenant directing by telephone the placement of an IED so it would damage a coalition convoy.

One retired officer attendee made notes and e-mailed his minutes of the session to other officers. The notes say there was general agreement on one issue: the "mainstream media" largely ignores progress. A commander said an embedded reporter filed a generally positive story on the operation in Tal Afar, only to see his stateside editors gut it and apply a negative spin.

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060717-124948-7563r

[long_green]

1. Thank God we can see the end from here

:sarcasm:

[saigon68]

8. Halliburton NOT DONE YET

[peacetalksforall]

2. Is 2016 the year by which all the Iraqi's oil will be sitting in storage a

owned by the Exxon's?

Or is that the year by which we will have come to a stop in this country?

Or is that the year we will have non-oil transportation?

They make me sick.

Let's just say it - The U.S.and most of Europe believes they own all the resources on the planet. All under the guise of political war and death. This is the main reason for television - their ultimate purpose.

There ought to be a law against pimping for death, causing death, excusing death. No law for our PNAC, Fed Society, Trilaterals, IMFs, barons cnad their CEO's and stockholders.

[alfredo]

13. 2016 is the year GWB hands over power to Jeb.

[Debau2005]

3. They see

10 more years in Iraq as "progress?"

[PSPS]

4. Rumsfeld 3/7/03: "six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

Of course, leave it to the Moonie Times to play up how the "librul media" makes it "hard wurk" what with their playing down all the "good news" in favor of all of those annoying, treasonous stories about war crimes.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. And they'll be receiving 'support from the vast majority of Iraqis', still

alive and the other 15 million will be dead.

[spinnaker]

26. Did they mean this progress in Tal Afar

bbc

From what I read Tal Afar has gone to hell in a handbasket again.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. 10 years?

I guess is it safe to make any sort of prediction if it's 10 years away.

[gasperc]

7. I find this optomistic

sigh

[agio]

25. it's the moonie times

... not really a news story, and not really a news source, imho.

[951-Riverside]

9. Finally some realistic numbers

...took them long enough :eyes:

[maxsolomon]

10. conveiniently, the end of the Jeb Bush administration

our fascist oligarchy pie should be just about cooked by then.

[ckramer]

11. Let's say one soldier died a day conservatively

what would be total in 2016?

[liberal N proud]

14. 3 years = 2551

Ten more years = 11,000+ US solders killed; 200,000 wounded US solders

Civilian death toll = who knows?
“We don’t do body counts” General Tommy Franks, US Central Command

And who said they were just numbers?

[shadowknows69]

19. I don't think there would be many civilians left

just us and the oil, just as the PNAC wants it.

[LifeDuringWartime]

12. oh good, an election year!

:sarcasm:

[seemslikeadream]

15. "I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong'

2506 "I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' Dick Morris, 4/9/03
Tue Jun 20th 2006, 03:59 PM
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/seemslikeadream/109


"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom
that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively
bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly
shattered skeptics' complaints." (Fox News Channel's Tony Snow,
4/27/03)



"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside
liberals, and a few people here in Washington." (Charles Krauthammer,
Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)



"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego
that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to
take that wager?" (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)



"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war
went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose
their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?"
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)



"It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the
broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that
nobody can do anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him.
The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."
(Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)



"Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in
Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?"
(Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)



"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's
most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.... I just
wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to
say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House
will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now,
Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war....

"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N.
weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr.
Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, "The United
States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs,
defeated." Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail,
again.

"Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this
guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and
so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is
going to have to hang its head for three or four more years."
(Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)



"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To
hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory
meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at
least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend.
Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and
for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a
defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened.
Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront
an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might
can set the world right."
(New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)



"Well, the hot story of the week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don
Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war
with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There
is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated
so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."
(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)



"Shouldn't the prime minister and all of us who thought the
war was hasty and dangerous and wrongheaded admit that we were wrong? I
mean, with the pictures of those Iraqis dancing in the streets, hauling
down statues of Saddam Hussein and gushing their thanks to the
Americans, isn't it clear that President Bush and Britain's Tony Blair
were right all along? If we believe it's a good thing that Hussein's
regime has been dismantled, aren't we hypocritical not to acknowledge
Bush's superior judgment?... Why can't those of us who thought the war
was a bad idea (or, at any rate, a premature one) let it go now and
just join in celebrating the victory wrought by our magnificent
military forces?"
(Washington Post's William Raspberry, 4/14/03)



"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless
military intervention.... The president will give an order. attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by
the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring
it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer,
3/30/03)



"Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State
Colin Powell made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the dumb
and the desperate could ignore it."
(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)




Until the philosophy,
Which holds one race superior
And another inferior,
Is finally and permanently
Discredited and abandoned,
Everywhere is war.

WAR

Until there is no longer first class
Or second class citizens of any nation.
Until the color of a man's skin,
Is of no more significance than
The color of his eyes,
I've got to say "war".

WAR

That until the basic human rights,
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race,
I'll say "war"

Until that day the dream of lasting peace,
World-citizenship and the rule of
International morality will remain
Just a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never obtained.
And everywhere is war.

Until the ignoble and unhappy regime
Which holds all of us through,
Child-abuse, yeah, child-abuse yeah,
Sub-human bondage has been toppled,
Utterly destroyed,
Everywhere is war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south,
There is war,
And the rumors of war.

Until that day,
the african continent will know no peace
There is no continent,
Which will know peace.

Children, children.

Fight!

We find it necessary.
We know we will win.
We have confidence in the victory
Of good over evil
Of good over evil

Fight the real enemy!

Bob Marley

[gratuitous]

16. Sure Mr. Raspberry, I was wrong

The American wehrmacht was absolutely able to kick the piss out of a fourth-rate dictatorship that had been subject to worldwide sanctions for over a decade. Not that I ever thought otherwise, but since it seems to have meant so much to you, there it is. I'm very sorry.

Now, let's move forward a few years. I still think waging war is a bad idea. What do you say now? Because I was telling you four years ago that what is happening now in Iraq is what would happen, when the Bush administration was planning the September rollout of its new product line back in 2002.

Where's my fucking apology, William Raspberry, and the rest of you cunts? And if none of you are man enough to take responsibility for your reckless words from three years ago, then get your worthless asses over to Iraq and at the very least, try to make good of this massive clusterfuck. At least your deaths might postpone or obviate the deaths of some people who don't deserve to die for your miscalculation.

[Monkeyman]

17. This is the cost .And it will be to much to bare

Close to 20,000 wounded now in 2016 it will be unbearable

[Spazito]

18. Wow, devastating collection of quotes!

Thanks for posting, will bookmark this thread so I can keep looking for the admissions from those folks in the quotes, I suspect my bookmark will gather dust while waiting, sadly.

[UpInArms]

20. USAToday: April 1, 2003 Prewar predictions coming back to bite

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm

Officials who forecast a brief conflict now say it'll be neither quick nor easy. That could open the administration to tough questions about credibility.

WASHINGTON -- Armchair generals and media critics aren't the only people whose comments are giving heartburn to administration officials defending the progress of the war with Iraq. The officials also face questions about their own remarks made before the fighting began.

Then, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke optimistically in interviews and at briefings about the prospects that the war would be short, Iraqi resistance limited and Iraqi citizens welcoming.

Now, the president has pounded the podium when asked how long the war will last -- "However long it takes," he replied Thursday with open annoyance -- and Myers said Sunday, "Nobody should have any illusions that this is going to be a quick and easy victory."

Four weeks ago, it was Myers who spoke with reporters about "a short, short conflict" against an Iraqi force that was "much weaker" than it was in the 1991 Gulf War.

<snip>

"Every rule of politics is to set low expectations and exceed them," says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, who has studied political rhetoric. "If you set high expectations and then don't reach them, you're going to be judged as having failed."

...more...

[daleo]

21. "Weeks, not months"

Cakewalk.
Flowers.
Viet Nam was about 12 years, this will exceed that.

[underpants]

24. "My ticket home is in Baghdad"

You heard that a lot from the rank and file before the war. Well, yeah I guess that sorta is right... but clearly not the way they thought it meant.

[Jacobin]

22. Let's do the blood math, shall we?

In the last three years, there've been approximately 2,500 U.S. troops killed and approximately 20,000 wounded.

If we assume that the rate doesn't rise (which is generous, because the attacks are increasing) and average that out over the thirteen year period (2003 to 2016), there will be 10,813 dead american troops and 86,666 maimed american troops.

Using 100,000 dead Iraqis for the past 3 years (I think its probably double that) and extrapolating that forward over 13 years, we get 433,333 dead Iraqis. I don't know of anyone keeping tabs on injured Iraqis.

As the attacks escalate, these figures will pale in comparison to what reality will bring.

Happy now, Neo-Cons? Whose gonna dig up THESE mass graves and do a war crimes trial?

:mad:

[warrens]

23. Of course, only if things continue to go as great as they are today

Otherwise, we might be there for a long time. Just think, your 8-year-old daughter might have a chance to get drafted and serve in Iraq before we bring the boys and girls home! Doesn't that make your chest swell with patriotic pride????

[ticapnews]

27. I thought there wasn't going to be a timetable for withdrawal?

Damn cut-and-runners!

:sarcasm: