Will We Ever Leave Iraq? Pentagon's Plans To Keep Troops There For DECADES

[kpete]

We have published no orders directing the planning for the overall withdrawal of forces," Pace replied. "We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down, but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown."

The Pentagon has not published any contingency plans on how to deal with Iraq in the event of a large-scale drawdown, but it is discussing various scenarios.

A series of military installations could be maintained around Iraq, with a total of total of 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops, for a long period of time — maybe a few decades. There are currently about 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The bases would be located in various strategic locations, ones that served by air landing strips, for instance. The bases would be sealed and U.S. forces wouldn't be on patrols as they are now.

more at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10292643

[AndyA]

1. Isn't this just wonderful?

Especially given the fact we have no damn business being over there in the first place!

And the people responsible for this travesty are not being held accountable for their lies and intentional misuse of bad information.

And we have a weak, spineless Democratic-led Congress who isn't going to do anything about it because they have other more important things to do.

I guess defending the Constitution isn't important. Or protecting our rights and liberties. I'm very disappointed in the Democrats right now. I expected more of them, and they are no better than the ones they replaced.

[yy4me]

2. Troops coordinated through our brand new billion dollar

embassy. What other reason would the government feel it needs to build a small city in the middle of Baghdad. Command and control center.

[mmonk]

3. Choose Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, or Al Gore for

president, and we probably won't. Choose the others, and we'll probably have bases near oil fields.

[Philosoraptor]

4. That's up to we. The People.

[KharmaTrain]

5. And We Have A Real Say In That Matter???

Anyone ask the Iraqis what they think? Nah.

I didn't see a thread on this here...or any mention in the corporate media (of course...this requires work)...about Al Sadr's change in tactics and how he's seeing an endgame here...

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014229.php

The 33-year-old populist is reaching out to a broad array of Sunni leaders, from politicians to insurgents, and purging extremist members of his Mahdi Army militia who target Sunnis. Sadr's political followers are distancing themselves from the fragile Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which is widely criticized as corrupt, inefficient and biased in favor of Iraq's majority Shiites. And moderates are taking up key roles in Sadr's movement, professing to be less anti-American and more nationalist as they seek to improve Sadr's image and position him in the middle of Iraq's ideological spectrum.

"We want to aim the guns against the occupation and al-Qaeda, not between Iraqis," Ahmed Shaibani, 37, a cleric who leads Sadr's newly formed reconciliation committee, said as he sat inside Sadr's heavily guarded compound here.

So Sadr's enemy is our enemy no? Isn't the reason we're in Iraq to go after Al Queda alone? Ya know...they're gonna follow us here :eyeroll:. So isn't Sadr ready to do our dirty work for us? Sure sounds like it to me. Let's declare "victory" and get the hell out NOW!!!

[MrSlayer]

6. Well.......Yeah.

That's what this is all about. This is no surprise. We're never leaving. As long as the oil barons and corporate giants control everything, including many on "our" side in Congress, everything will simply get worse and worse.

[chimpymustgo]

7. We have "our interests" to look out for. Operation Iraqi Liberation. OIL.

Billion dollar embassy. Billions for bases. That's one serious occupation we are preparing for.

[liberalmike27]

8. I've been saying tha for a while

Sadly, both sides of the aisle realize this. All of the talk is for show, as well as the legislation. It was about oil, it was about big business, campaign contributions, and oil and defense company profits. It is a story that is just about as old as time, and a damn Greek tragedy. Each day I become a little more hopeless about the corporatocracy.