Per military, what a US pullout from Iraq would entail:

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/09/AR2007060901464_pf.html

Military Envisions Longer Stay in Iraq
Officers Anticipate Small 'Post-Occupation' Force

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 10, 2007; A01

snip//

One of the guiding principles, according to two officials here, is that the United States should leave Iraq more intelligently than it entered. Military officials, many of whom would be interviewed only on the condition of anonymity, say they are now assessing conditions more realistically, rejecting the "steady progress" mantra of their predecessors and recognizing that short-term political reconciliation in Iraq is unlikely. A reduction of troops, some officials argue, would demonstrate to anti-American factions that the occupation will not last forever while reassuring Iraqi allies that the United States does not intend to abandon the country.

The planning is shaped in part by logistical realities in Iraq. The immediate all-or-nothing debate in Washington over troop levels represents a false dilemma, some military officials said. Even if a total pullout is the goal, it could take a year to execute a full withdrawal. One official estimated that with only one major route from the country -- through southern Iraq to Kuwait -- it would take at least 3,000 large convoys some 10 months to remove U.S. military gear and personnel alone, not including the several thousand combat vehicles that would be needed to protect such an operation.

more...

[acmavm]

1. Dumb asses can't figure out how to get out in less than a year. How can

they win a 'war' if they can't even figure out how to get out of there?

[MH1]

5. Which branch of the service were you in?

Just curious.

I was in the Army for a few years and the assessment seems realistic to me.

My congressman Joe Sestak (30 years in the Navy, retired as Admiral) has said repeatedly that he thinks a one-year withdrawal timeline is needed to do it safely and properly. (However he will vote for a timeline as short as 6 months)

[acmavm]

6. I wasn't in the service. My dad was in the Navy, my brother John was in

the Air Force, Bob was in the Army, and Tommy was in the Marines. If you think I'm impressed because you were in the military, guess again.

We figured out how to get out in real short time when we were losing Viet Nam, didn't we?

[MH1]

7. It looks different to someone who has been in.

The point isn't to "impress" the point is to suggest a different perspective.

What do your family members who served think about this?

And are you saying that the way we got out of Vietnam is the model we should follow for leaving Iraq?

(I didn't think it was that quick there, either, but I could be wrong.)

[acmavm]

10. The members in MY family (but one) who served think that this whole

was nothing more than a macho criminal conspiracy by a bunch of crazy pro-Israel greedy bastards who never spent a day in the military and who depend on sending the children of people the feel are 'not their kind' to go and do the fighting and dying for them.

The one that I can't vouch for (my Dad is dead) hated bush I (Poopy Bush) with a passion and always stated that no person who was ever head of an intelligence agency should ever be allowed near the White House. So I can damn well guess what he would say.

Do you mean to suggest that the United States government took one year (or slightly less) to get the hell out of Viet Nam after they were forced to face the fact that the public understood what the Nixon administration had know for a long time, that the war was unwinnable? Bullshit. They left all their machinery, and their crap, tried to destroy what records there were, and got the hell out. And we don't ever intend to bring all the crap we hauled over there back here either. That's a pantload.

We can pull out now, or get run out like Viet Nam. Because the situation is heating up more than just with problems with Sunni/Shi'ite violence. The Turks and Iranians are sick of the Kurdish separatists scurrying into thier countries and staging attacks. And we keep knocking off al Sadr's political buddies. And the Iranian Parliment voted our asses out as of the end of this year, didn't they? And the Saudis are sick of the Shi'ites having the upper hand in Iraq. And on and on and on. It's lost folks. Get used to it. Put it in the column with Korea and Viet Nam.

[grytpype]

12. It took years to wind down our forces in Vietnam.

[acmavm]

14. Years? They were pumping in warm bodies clear until the end.

Regardless, it you experts think it's gonna take 'years, then we'd damn well be start to packing and leaving.

BECAUSE IT'S LOST FOLKS. LOST, LOST, LOST.

[hack89]

13. The withdrawal from Viet Nam took years

Starting in 1971 and ending in 1974.

Basic logic: if it take x numbers of ships, planes and truck to get the stuff into Iraq, then it will take the same number to get it out. And it has to be done in such a way that we don't get a large numbers of Americans killed.

[acmavm]

15. Don't expect me to believe that we are going to take every bit of equipment

out of there that they took in. Especially with events like the abandonment of trucks by Halliburton because they had a flat tire.

Here's some more basic logic for ya: If your ass is getting blown away, if you are not making any progress in subduing the populace, if you only control an area in the capital known as the Green Zone and attacks are picking up there too, well then it's time to get out. Forget the crap you brought, just leave. Go. Scram. Beat it.

Plus I want someone to point me to where it says that evacuation in Viet Nam started in 1971. I don't thinkn so.

[hack89]

17. Here you go...

http://members.aol.com/warlibrary/vwatl.htm

Peak of 536100 troops in 1968 with a steady decline afterwards. Huge drop to 156800 in 1971 with 50 left by 73.

[acmavm]

23. Ok, fine. So they did a gradual drawdown for two years. I'll give you that

one and admit I was wrong. But IT DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE SO LONG. This argument is pointless. They need to start pulling our people out. Now. Especially if, as you say, it takes a couple of years for these guys to plan a pull out. In which case, they should have started two years ago.

[hack89]

18. So you as tax payer have no problem ...

with paying twice for equipment after perfectly useful and expensive gear is abandoned? You know that the government will want to replace it. OK - I certainly can't think of any higher priorities for my tax money.:eyes:

[acmavm]

22. They won't bring it back anyway. And if they don't get out now, they

won't have much of a chance if getting out with their backpacks.

[hack89]

26. A curious statement

we are no where close to a tactical defeat -we can go anywhere we want in the country, run hundreds of conveys all over Iraq ever day and suffer the lowest death rate off any war we have ever fought. Further more, how many insurgents do you think die for every one of out soldiers? The insurgents cannot go toe to toe with the US military. Show me a single instance where a US tactical unit suffered a defeat at the hands of the insurgents. Why do you think the only method they have for killing Americans is road side bombs?

Don't get me wrong - we cannot "win" in Iraq and need to withdraw but the idea that we are on the edge of a military tactical disaster is ridiculous. We are on the edge of a strategic disaster due to our policies but I bet that there will be a gradual pull out with a no significant increase in the casualty rate.

[acmavm]

27. Wait.

[hack89]

28. For what?

the insurgents are not getting any stronger.

[karlrschneider]

21. They'd be a lot less likely to get killed leaving than they are staying.

...

[Recursion]

37. Not really

Took us about 18 months, with nearly a full year planning and pre-deployment before that.

You really can't just move 150,000 people out of a country in a few weeks, particularly if you have to keep a security posture the whole time.

[liberal N proud]

2. Don't they usually just leave the "gear" behind?

Don't they usually destroy it in place or abandon that which is of no use to the enemy?

You just put the troops on planes and head on out

[DFW]

3. There are other routes, though not quite as "major"

There is west through Turkey, who is still part of NATO, and west through Jordan,
although the regime there might be toppled by the sight of thousand of Americans
in military uniform, even if they were just "passing through." The roads to and
through Turkey aren't exactly Interstate 95, either.

It's true that they would need a LOT of security for the withdrawing forces.
Cheney and Rummy figured there would be tearful waving of hankies and flowers,
not angry Iraqis taking pot shots for a bit of revenge for having gotten
family members killed, so they didn't make any logistical plans for it.

[AntiFascist]

25. This is what is completely dumbfounding....

How the hell did our leaders come up with the religously-crazed or drug-induced theory that most of the Iraqis would be greeting us with candies and flowers after we bombed the hell out of their country in the previous war, enacted brutle sanctions against them, then reminded them of the carnage later with "shock and awe"?

We lost two buildings in New York, after which much of America became ready to wage war against all of Islam. Imagine how the Iraqis must feel about us!

[Recursion]

38. Roads are precisely the problem

You can't dump a quarter million personnel into southeast turkey. Well, you can dump them there (with some difficulty -- they'd have to hoof it the last few hundred miles), but then what do you do? Have them re-enact the Anabasis and force-march to the Med? They need to get to a sea lane, and that's either Israel via Jordan (which as has been pointed out would mean the end of the monarchy there) or Kuwait. Conceivably, if we could negotiate a truce with the insurgents to withdraw we could do it more quickly, say, 2 months. But I don't know if anyone among the insurgents has the clout to enforce a truce like that.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. There Is No Such Thing As Am Orderly Withdrawal

Don't these people actually study history? (Guess not - they also thought that you can successfully occupy a country without first utterly destroying it...) I guess this is more faith-based war planning.

We've lost in Iraq. It's over.

There is no orderly retreat when a military force loses. We'll have to pull out rapidly, or we'll be utterly overwhelmed as our forces become diminished.

[dkofos]

8. Just order them to invade Kuwait and they can get it done in 6 weeks.

Let kbr stay to clean up the mess

[jwirr]

16. Speaking of kbr - that is probably what will take so long getting

out - covering the asses of private profiteer companies that are running ahead of our troops to get out.

[eridani]

33. We don't owe mercenaries squat

Let's take care of the people who have to serve under the military code at 1/30th of the salary first.

[jwirr]

35. I agree with you totally but I also realize that *ss is more interested

in keeping his "oil guarders" safe than our men and women. Also I was basically saying that the mercenaries would use the cover of our troops to save their own asses.

[yy4me]

9. So.....Start now! Ten months from now is at least an end time to

aim for. If we don't ever start to withdraw, we will never end this horror.

[globalvillage]

11. Is this the debate in Washington?

The immediate all-or-nothing debate in Washington over troop levels represents a false dilemma, some military officials said. Even if a total pullout is the goal, it could take a year to execute a full withdrawal.
...
"We're not going to go from where we're at now to zero overnight,"

This isn't the debate I'm hearing. Who is having this debate?
Few are arguing that we should be out "overnight". Most proposals call for a withdrawal over a period of time. Kerry/Feingold said it would take a year, and recommended 'over the horizon' and a small troop presence for some time after that. That was a year ago. The most recent Dem plan called for a very similar withdrawal.
A lot of us would like to be out overnight, but I'm not sure very many think it's actionable. And I've heard no real proposals for it.
Both K/F and Reid-Feingold called for a phased withdrawal.

This is a false argument intended to paint realistic plans for withdrawal as ‘cut and run’.

[ReverendDeuce]

19. The argument will soon be: It's more expensive to withdraw than stay!

Just you watch...

[karlrschneider]

20. I'm not at all sure it wouldn't be cheaper to replace all the stuff than to haul it back.

A lot of it would need major repair or overhaul once it's returned anyway. I don't think I imagined those images of planes and choppers being pushed overboard in the S. China Sea...
:eyes:

[ProSense]

24. We can't leave because leaving is "hard werk." Ten months?

Good! Start now and they could wrap it up by April 2008, or by July 2008 if they wait until September 2007 to begin withdrawal.

It seems to me Senator Kerry has been calling for a deadline that's quite realistic.

Nixon withdrew 300,000 from Vietnam in a year.

[19jet54]

29. Empire Building

What empire would intentionally destroy or downsize itself?

That is why the civilians were put in charge; but today politicians always pass the buck off so the stink won't stick ...

[Nimrod2005]

30. One way out on the road to Kuwait, getting shot at from both sides of the street

on the way out?

[mopinko]

31. .

and with all that trillions, you telling me it takes a year to move a piddly, inadequate force out of there? bullshit. just bullshit.
if that is the truth, it is an f'ing crime.

[guruoo]

32. I've been asking Ft. Campbell soldiers about this...

I have suggested a choice of three, six, and one year withdrawal scenarios .
The general consensus so far has been that it would take around six months
to safely execute total force withdrawal from the country.

[GeorgeGist]

34. That's odd ...

I've generally found it takes longer to get nowhere than it does to leave.

[genie_weenie]

36. See! Even if we wanted to leave (and only troop-haters want that)

we couldn't leave for more than a year. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

Re: To All incoming Marines at MCRD San Diego

Be prepared to serve your first year after MOS in Anbar.