500,000 Troops Needed for Iraq - US Army - 480,000

[TNOE]

http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/summer2003/nation5.html

Snip:
The first lesson is that democratic nation-building can work given sufficient inputs of resources. These inputs, however, can be very high. Regarding military forces, Figure 3 takes the numbers of troops used in the previous cases of nation-building and projects, for each, a proportionally equivalent force for the Iraqi population over the next decade. For example, if Kosovo levels of troop commitments were deployed to Iraq, the number would be some 500,000 U.S. and coalition troops through 2005. (There are roughly 150,000 coalition troops stationed in Iraq today.) To provide troop coverage at Bosnia levels, the requisite troop figures would be 460,000 initially, falling to 258,000 by 2005 and 145,000 by 2008.

And this article:

http://rense.com/general41/ssyh.htm

There are 122,000 Army personnel in Iraq, including 3,000 National Guard soldiers and 5,000 reservists, Army officials told the Post. Another 5,000 Guard soldiers and 7,000 reservists are serving in Kuwait.

NOW THE NUMBER OF SOLDIERS IS DOWN TO 122,000???? WHERE ARE ALL THESE SOLDIERS DISAPPEARING TO??? 150,000 - 139,000 - 136,000 - Bush said 130,000 in his speach - and now the number is 122,000. Things ARE NOT GOOD ME THINKS.

[Cocoa]

1. the best thing about this...

Clinton's operations are the model of success.

I really hope there is a very vigorous debate along these lines. Give the dems a chance to revisit all the criticism of Clinton over Bosnia and Kosovo, and revisit Bush's derision of "nation building" during his campaign.

Just like the economy, where Gephardt is recalling how Dick Armey predicted that Clinton's economic plan would result in economic collapse, and recalling that it passed without a single republican vote.

[grytpype]

2. Thanks for shooting yourself in the foot, Duhbya.

You were really on a roll. You might even have been (re) elected if you had the sense to tell those PNAC ninnycons you weren't going to buy into their rosy scenerios.

But now you've finished yourself off. Good for us.

[sushi]

4. Don't count your chickens...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[Kolesar]

3. Fuzzy math becomes dummy math

Where are all the soldiers going? If they are getting off planes in the US, we should get them to tell us what is really going on over there.

[catmandu57]

5. Where have all the soldiers gone?

Well, at least three hundred are dead. We don't know how many wounded a lowball guess would be 1500, and growing every day.

[Oracle]

6. They had almost 600,000 troops in little ole Vietnam...

at the wars peak...and look how that turned out...