Posted on 12/04/2005 1:38:06 PM PST by Daralundy
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States may be ready to reduce troops in Iraq next year if Iraqis continue making progress at the current rate, President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday.
Stephen Hadley appeared on a round of Sunday talk shows to follow up on President Bush's speech on Iraq from the U.S. Naval Academy last week. Hadley echoed Bush's statement that decisions about troop withdrawals would be made when U.S. commanders there felt Iraqis were ready to govern and protect themselves without U.S. help, but said that could come as early as 2006.
"We think that if trends continue and we continue to make the progress and the Iraqis continue to make the progress we're making, we'll be in a position sometime next year for us to - for the commanders on the ground to make their assessments," Hadley said on ABC's "This Week." "And it may be at that point they will come to the president and say, we want to make some adjustments."
Hadley said the deaths in Iraq, now above 2,100, have been very difficult for the president. Still, he said Bush expects insurgent attacks will increase in the next couple of weeks before Iraq's Dec. 15 elections.
Hadley was repeatedly asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether Vice President Dick Cheney was wrong when he said last May that the insurgency was in its last throes, but he would not directly answer. "Clearly, there's a lot more work to do," he said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he also thinks it is possible to bring U.S. troops home in the next year or two, "but it's going to be tough." He said one of the biggest mistakes that the Bush administration made in fighting the war was to have too few troops in Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingnews.nypost.com ...
Just don't talk about it..just do it....the right
way.....leave the cynics in the dust with elected
Iraquis and pride in their future. they owe our
brave falllen heroes and the faithful military who
are doing the job...owe..them this respect.a replica
of Normandy and the sacrifices that make us a unique
country..is what we all..owe each other.. LOVE. Jake
Didn't we already know that we were going to scale back after the elections over there? Seems the strategery hasn't changed, only the PR of it all.
It's not like the MSM have been listening anyway
The Dems act like this is something new. I'll bet we can go back a year, even two and find 100 references.
If everything goes well with the Iraqi Security forces, we may be able to reduce troop presence.
Why must the AP idiots and gullible morons who read headlines be so obtuse?
Yes, I thought the title (and the article) were a leetle flaky. Anyone see Hadley on tv. I bet he explained everything clearly.
It is Rush Limbaugh's favorite reporter NEDRA PICKLER.
Well said smoothsailing.
A self motivating political statement to say the least.
We might as well be ready for it, we know President Bush will be portrayed as an obstacle to success.
Only the visionaries of the old media and the wisdom of the Democrats could steer the the clueless W onto the proper course.
That's the Lefty plan for now at least, until W and the rest of us expose this lie.
Here's an idea: Let's not announce publicly how many troops we have in Iraq until there aren't any. Let's make it classified, so that the terrorists don't get to plan, and so that the media can't hurt morale by constantly asking us how many we have and when more will come home.Isn't that what you do in war, deny useful information to your enemies?
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