Posted on 05/26/2007 5:26:56 PM PDT by bnelson44
WASHINGTON, May 26 — There is one matter on which American military commanders, many Iraqis and some of the Bush administration’s staunchest Congressional critics agree: if the United States withdrew its forces from Baghdad’s streets this fall, the murder and mayhem would increase.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Anthony C. Zinni, a retired four-star general who formerly led Central Command, strongly opposed the decision to invade Iraq, fearing that it might lead to sectarian fighting and regional destabilization. But now that American forces have occupied the country, General Zinni fears that a troop withdrawal will compound the instability. The notion that the United States can pressure the Iraqis to take more responsibility for their own security, the general said, was impractical: with Iraqi security forces still not ready, militias would fill the gap.
General Zinni said it made sense to keep American forces at current levels for a year or so before gradually reducing troop levels and executing a strategy to try to keep Iraq’s instability from spreading. “When we are in Iraq we are in many ways containing the violence,” he said. “If we back off we give it more room to breathe, and it may metastasize in some way and become a regional problem. We don’t have to be there at the same force level, but it is a five- to seven-year process to get any reasonable stability in Iraq.”
"Increased Strife Is Foreseen in" United States of America "if U.S. Troops Leave" Iraq.
yitbos
I can’t believe Zinni actually said this.
I figure Iran qill putAl sadr in Charge for a while. that means Iraq qill be fighting Syria and Israel. The Al qaeda trainees lerning there now will spread throughtout the world. the saudis and Kuwaiti’s will come under fire also.
Yes Demmie Dummy’s jump up and cut and run now and it will be the 2nd biggest mistake this country ever made. Right behind giving citizenship, Social security, food Stamps and Z-Visa’s to millions of illegal mexicans.
From The New York Times??? What page did you find this on....Z-67??
The Mideast is a cesspool.
Stopping A. Q. Khan was worth the investment of going into Iraq.
“General Zinni said it made sense to keep American forces at current levels for a year or so before gradually reducing troop levels and executing a strategy to try to keep Iraq’s instability from spreading. “
Nahh... Hillary will insist that because of the war we have to move the elections back 6 months.
And she will be adored for her courage by the MSM.
They are trying to give the Dems in the congress cover. The left blogs are going nuts with the fury on the Dems because they just voted in the budget for the military.
The NYT now realizes it did it’s job too well, and the Dem base is being split. It has to calm the base down.
I need to hear what Shinseki says, before I decide. /s
Zinni wants to have it both ways (it was a mistake to invade, and invasion was executed poorly, but now... yada-yada) and give cover to Hillary, expecting that he will be rewarded by post of SecDef or JCoS or NSA if she becomes President - because at least some troops will still have to be there, and they don't want the bloodshed and the news of such be laid squarely on them.
So when the question becomes not all-in or all-out but how many troops, they have a cover.
Hillary plaid it very cautiously until now, but she is being forced by Moveon and similar moonbats into a more radical position to ward off Obama insurgency, and so for the first time she had to actually vote "NON" on the Iraq funding. She will have a "middle-of-the-road" excuse, though - "benchmarks not tough enough" and other pablum of the same kind.
plaid=played
Well duh ... ping
True. Zinni and most of the other retired flag officers who have spoken out against the war and/or the Bush Administration have played a dangerous game. In order to get their fifteen minutes of "venting" out in front of the public, they have damaged and disrupted what they know to be a necessary effort to defeat terrorism. Their experience tells them what a disaster a precipitous and total withdrawal from Iraq would be, but now they're owned by the antiwar movement.
I’ll bump that. Pretty disgusting, isn’t it.
But that is not our fight. American troops have paid their dues in that arena. Let the Sunnis and Shiites have at it.
That's a dandy idea, if they'd stick with just killing each other. But we know they won't. They want to kill us, too.
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