The proper order of things.....

[ewagner]

I've been thinking that we've got the question wrong.

We're asking should be pull out of Iraq? Or, more, precisely, should be pull out of Iraq slowly or quickly? But it seems like we haven't answered the basic question yet.....

That is,

...given all that has come to pass, that we shouldn't have invaded in the first place, that the occupation by the Coalition Provisional Authority was a monumental f-up, that we didn't have enough troops to secure the country, that we uleashed sectarian violence on a hellish scale, that we emboldened Iran and Syria in the process.....and on and on and on....

given that,

WHAT IS OUR MISSION IN IRAQ NOW?

What can we realistically accomplish there, now?

If we have no mission, we have no reason to be there......

If we have no realistic expectations of success, we have no reason to remain there...

Can we support a government that has no popular support? Before we go about deciding how and when to leave Iraq we should determine what we want to accomplish first.....

I think this is the problem. After we "disarmed Saddam" our mission was completed and we should have left....we've overstayed our welcome.

[mike_c]

1. the mission now is...

...operation Limit Embarrassment. Like the previous missions, it too is doomed to fail.

[kentuck]

2. I agree...

It's so easy to dismiss the grand mistakes that got us there with a simple, "but we're there now"... Somehow that is not enough. We don't need retribution - we need justice.