'Don't dream about full exits. The military is in Iraq for the LONG HAUL'

[leftchick]

Does anyone really think bush is going to "flip-flop" on staying the course in Iraq? In spite of the big sit down with the top brass today, does anyone really think there is a chance in hell cheney will let go of that oil??? No Fucking Way.

It is all a ruse for the pre-election repukes scared about their seats. The facts are the US has at least FOUR PERMANENT Bases in Iraq and a very cool multinational oil contract that goes into effect at the end of this year. Not to mention our hideous 500 MILLION dollar embassy! Nope we are there for my lifetime. Those Are The FACTS....




Bush holds strategy session on Iraq

Note: he spent a whole fucking 90 minutes with the big guns...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061021/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq


Under bipartisan, pre-election pressure for a significant re-examination of the president's war plan, the White House is walking a fine line.

It made sure to publicize the president's high-level meeting on the deteriorating conditions in Iraq — October already is the deadliest month this year for U.S. troops. At the same time, officials characterized the session as routine and part of a continuing discussion that seeks merely tactical adjustments to — not a radical overhaul of — war policy.

"I wouldn't read into this somehow that there is a full-scale push for a major re-evaluation," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said about the White House meeting. Rice, traveling from Asia to Moscow, stressed to reporters that Bush talks often with his generals in Iraq, and did so recently at Camp David.

The 90-minute session Saturday brought together Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East; Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley; and other officials. Participating by videoconference were Vice President Dick Cheney; Gen. George Casey, who leads the U.S.-led Multinational Forces in Iraq; and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12441799/site/newsweek/#storyContinued

Stuck in the Hot Zone
Don't dream about full exits. The military is in Iraq for the long haul.

<snip>

If you want an image of what America's long-term plans for Iraq look like, it's right here at Balad. Tucked away in a rural no man's land 43 miles north of Baghdad, this 15-square-mile mini-city of thousands of trailers and vehicle depots is one of four "superbases" where the Pentagon plans to consolidate U.S. forces, taking them gradually from the front lines of the Iraq war. (Two other bases are slated for the British and Iraqi military.) The shift is part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to draw down U.S. ground forces in Iraq significantly by the end of 2006. Pentagon planners hope that this partial withdrawal will, in turn, help take the edge off rising opposition to the war at home—long enough to secure Iraq's nascent democracy.

But the vast base being built up at Balad is also hard evidence that, despite all the political debate in Washington about a quick U.S. pullout, the Pentagon is planning to stay in Iraq for a long time—at least a decade or so, according to military strategists. Sovereignty issues still need to be worked out by mutual, legal agreement. But even as Iraqi politicians settle on a new government after four months of stalemate—on Saturday, they agreed on a new prime minister, Jawad al-Maliki—they also are welcoming the long-term U.S. presence. Sectarian conflict here has worsened in recent months, outstripping the anti-American insurgency in significance, and many Iraqis know there is no alternative to U.S. troops for the foreseeable future. "I think the presence of the American forces can be seen as an insurance policy for the unity of Iraq," says national-security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2006/0710power.htm


Of Oil, War and Power
– Learning From History
By Greg Muttitt
Niqash
July 10, 2006

One year before he became US Vice President, Dick Cheney told an audience of oil company executives in London that, “y 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day … While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest production cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.”

Now, seven years after Cheney’s speech, Iraq’s new oil minister is writing an oil law to open the way for contracts to be signed with multinational oil companies - contracts that could last for several decades. The law will be voted on by parliament by the end of this year. With such a long-term impact on Iraq’s economy, development and politics, politicians would be wise to observe the lessons of the history of Iraq’s oil.

Cheney’s speech echoed a comment 91 years earlier, by a member of the world’s then superpower, Great Britain. The Secretary of the War Cabinet, Maurice Hankey, wrote in a memo in 1918, “Oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian and Mesopotamian supply … Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim.”

Maurice Hankey also had to wait seven years for his aim to be realised. In 1925 a concession contract was signed between the British-installed Iraqi government of King Faisal and the Turkish Petroleum Company (later renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company). The IPC was jointly owned by the companies that would later become Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Total, some of the very same companies that are pushing for contracts in Iraq now.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Your lifetime, my lifetime

and our childrens, childrens lifetimes :cry:

[AndyTiedye]

2. Not That Long. The Oil Will Be Gone By Then.

[leftchick]

4. well

there is that. :(

[leftchick]

7. for sure

:(

[AIJ Alom]

3. Not unless we have something to say about it. We're leaving the mess in

the Middle East, the debacle in the desert. One thing though, the neocons and war profiters, after the big civil war after we leave should be forced to pay reparations to whatever Iraq is left and to the American families who have lost loved ones.

[bigtree]

5. I think he's through with Iraq after the election

He'll want to free up the soldiers for Iran


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[leftchick]

6. perhaps

launching the Iran war from US bases in Iraq? How convenient!

[elocs]

8. This presents a dilemma in 2009 for a Democratic president along

with a Democratic congress. Will that president get sucked into the "we cannot leave until Iraq is prepared to take care of itself" argument and end up being stuck there? What if Iraq asks us to leave, are they not a sovereign country? What if a Democratic president says we're out of Iraq, the troops come home? If a smaller force is left in Iraq, the smaller it is, the more likely it is to be overwhelmed or over ran. Is the talk to bring our troops home now just that--talk? If not, how will there be troops in Iraq throughout my lifetime?