Amazing: US will run out of troops to maintain Iraq effort come April?

[babylonsister]

So, remind me again why they were so all-fired hot to have this surge? Even if it had worked, they couldn't support it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/world/middleeast/24policy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

snip//

The reality, officials said, is that starting around April the military will simply run out of troops to maintain the current effort. By then, officials said, Mr. Bush would either have to withdraw roughly one brigade a month, or extend the tours of troops now in Iraq and shorten their time back home before redeployment. The latter, said one White House official, “is not something the president wants to do” and would likely become a centerpiece of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Advisers to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and senior members of Congress who have discussed the issue with Mr. Gates have described one of his central goals as trying to turn down the heat in Iraq, transforming the war from the central national security crisis confronting the nation to an important but manageable long-term foreign policy and military issue. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed similar views, but it is unclear whether Vice President Dick Cheney or President Bush will try to squeeze every possible month out of the troop increase.

It is difficult to predict how the assessments will play out in the next three months. Congressional Democrats, who wrote the Sept. 15 deadline into war-financing legislation, envisioned General Petraeus’s report as the moment they would have enough solid information to decide whether to continue financing for the so-called surge. They say that it could provide the opportunity to peel away enough nervous Republicans to create a veto-proof majority in favor of a withdrawal. An earlier report, due next month, is expected to be less significant.

But with the proliferation of assessments, there may also be a proliferation of contradictory views. That is exactly what the White House sought to create last December, when it ordered other studies to offset the findings of the Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton. Mr. Bush rejected much of the group’s advice — until recently, when he declared that it was his intention to get back to the group’s plan. He did not say which parts, but the plan includes a call, filled with caveats, for gradual withdrawal of all combat brigades by the end of March 2008.

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[Demeter]

1. At The Current Casualty Rate, We'd Be Lucky To Get to January

April my foot!

[glowing]

2. I would have to say, someone may just bring out the draft card.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. It depends on their priorities at the time

If Iraq (or more specifically, Iraq's oil) is still more important than anything, yes, they'll bring out the draft. BUT if they have decided not to go with the dictatorship and there are to be elections, you can bet your bottom dollar that NO Republican will be elected, from President to dog catcher.

[Solly Mack]

3. the words ruse and subterfuge come to mind

whenever I read anything regarding Iraq and Bush/Cheney/Gates

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. If Bush extends tours and shortens leaves

I predict more and more troops either going AWOL or refusing to fight because of illegal orders. I just hope that it won't result in someone flipping out and killing a bunch of people so they don't have to go back.

[babylonsister]

6. I too could see someone flipping out; I imagine soldiers are getting

mighty sick of the endless deployments, body counts surging, etc.

[havocmom]

7. Citenzenship for service

They figure there are millions of new recruits just around the corner.

[TahitiNut]

9. Erect signs at all our borders ...

"El trabajo te dará la libertad" (Jobs Americans won't do?)


Open recruiting offices throughout Latin America and the Third World ...
"El servicio te dará ciudadanía" (Military service Americans won't perform?)

Hey! It worked at Auschwitz. :shrug:

[havocmom]

10. Yeah, it worked in the past, and the same sort of thugs making policy now

There has already been some noise out of D.C. about this possibility, hasn't there? People are just a means to an end for the corporate machine. They don't care which people go down, so long as they get to keep turning blood into money.

Was done in this country already too, with the Irish. The bastards will do it again; take a desperate and hard working people, dangle the carrot of a better life, then grind them to dust for money.

[entanglement]

12. FYI there are already 50,000 non-citizen troops in the US military

[TahitiNut]

13. I thought it was 40,000 ... but that's in the same ballpark.

Personally, I regard that as reprehensible ... and STRONGLY believe that's a task that ALL Americans should share.

[genie_weenie]

8. Look the admin is going to extend

tours, cut leave and run the military at full revolutions up until just a few months prior to the 2008 elections.

Then they will pull out the troops at the behest of the next Repuke candidate.

Who will run on the platform he ended the war, something the Dems couldn't get around to since they took over congress and the Right will regain seats and the presidency and everyone here will be wondering why anti-war voters didn't choose a Dem for president.

[havocmom]

11. Extending tours and cutting leave is just a way for the junta to cut costs

They do not want to even fund the appearance of care for Veterans. They loath spending any funds on people; the profit margin is too slim.