Iraqi elections for a constitution writing body are scheduled for next January - after our own, so they can know what our policy is going to be before they vote.
Then they will set up some system, and will have to hold elections under that system. That is scheduled for December of next year, a year after our own elections.
Only after those so elected take office - at the begining of 2006 - will Iraq have its own fully functioning, democratically elected, constitutionally legal new government. Then we can talk about leaving, or retaining only a few bases if they want us to, while they basically take responsibility for their own affairs.
That is the timeline. All the cut and run people are suggesting we trash it, write off a democratic Iraqi government as beyond our capabilities, and run away before that has all happened.
Which is a recipe for a civil war, a failed state, and Afghanistan II as a base for AQ terrorists, this time with about a hundred times the financing. It is a recipe for defeat in other words.
Meanwhile, there isn't a single thing the terrorists can actually do to kick us out before the entire timeline plays out. Only we can do that. They are just saying "boo" and creating openings for our defeatists to shout that the sky is falling. The sky isn't falling. Defeatists just want to ride the cry that it is, into the White House.