The Iraqis will take over more and more of the responsibilities. US troop levels will be drawn down during the year. I fully expect the US to have bases in Iraq for decades.
At least until Iran, Syria, SA and the Palis are calmed down.
The Iraqi ministry of defence needs to get up and running. Murtha forgets that there is, right now, no THEY to take over. If only he had kept his big mouth shut until after the December 15 election and the establishment of a permanent government.
"Let me predict this,” Murtha said. "We're going to be out of there, we're going to be out of there very quickly, and it's going to be close to the plan that I'm presenting right now.”
He's trying to take credit for plans others have devised. He's putting "transiting military" at risk in saying what he is saying, and he is doing all this to salvage his ego and that of the Democratic party.
One needs only special access to certain players and pieces of data to track who is leaving Iraq and when, and who is returning and when.
And he's calling this "his" plan?
Every single mother, father, wife, husband, child, etc., with a loved one serving in Iraq, possibly coming home soon, should consider faxing Murtha's office and telling him to SHUT UP.
We, are not allowed to discuss when our loved ones are coming home; nor, are we allowed to know precisely when. There are security reasons for this. We wait, anxiously, for the phone call telling us "he or she" has "landed" on home turf.
And yet, here is Murtha shooting his mouth off. And putting our loved ones at risk.
Up until this uttering, I saw Murtha's "anti-war pullout" position as simply that of a party-line mandate.
But this utterance of his? Is he faxing and emailing the enemy as to his "great plans" for US Withdrawal"? (When it is NOT a pull-out or withdrawal.).
His utterance, here, begins to sink him into the category of "traitor" in my books.
I've been saying right from the start that if we do this right we'll have an "aircraft carrier" as big as Texas right in the heart of Islam.
George W. Bush plays Texas Hold 'em with one hand and chess with the other, and the liberal bed-wetters call him "shrub"!
Regards,
GtG