Posted on 11/25/2007 3:32:20 PM PST by neverdem
BAGHDAD, Nov. 24 — The first substantive drawdown of American troops in Iraq has begun, as the first members of a brigade in Diyala Province have started to leave, American military officials in Baghdad said Saturday.
Col. David W. Sutherland of the Third Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division, whose soldiers have been working in Diyala since last November, said all 5,000 of his troops would be gone by mid-December.
However, because of continuing violence in Diyala, another brigade that is already in the country will take the place of the Third Brigade Combat Team.
The replacement soldiers are already in Diyala and are taking over their new jobs, Colonel Sutherland said. The replacement brigade, which had worked in Salahuddin Province, which is to the north and west of Diyala, will leave quieter areas of that province to the Iraqi Army and concerned local citizen groups, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, spokesman for the multinational division forces in Baghdad.
“There is a 5,000-troop net decrease in theater,” Admiral Smith said. “The redeployment without replacement reflects the overall improved security situation in Iraq.”
But he cautioned against painting too optimistic a picture. “We do not assess we are in a trend of peace; we are in a trend of decreasing violence,” he said.
When this initial drawdown is completed, the number of troops will drop to about 157,000 from 162,000 in June, when the American troop level was at its peak.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, has said repeatedly that there will not be another troop increase and has pledged to bring home a total of five brigades by July 2008.
The military began increasing troops in Baghdad and surrounding areas in February in an effort to stop the cycle of violence in the capital. Between February...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That headline strikes me as weird. With rare exceptions such as Special Forces, the Rangers in the 75th Infantry Regiment, and some armored cavalry regiments, the vast majority of the US Army is organized into independently deployable brigades, even if they are historically associated with particular divisions.
Joao Silva for The New York Times
A ceremony was held Saturday in Baghdad to commemorate the reopening of a riverside road.
Don’t get excited...US ain’t going nowhere.
The US military has a long memory. It remembers how it tried to train the South Vietnamese army, and how much hope they had that it would take over from the US some day.
It also remembers how the US Democrat congress betrayed South Vietnam and its army, leaving it with no support or supply when the US left.
Cutting them off and letting them fend for themselves against an enemy with unlimited supply from the Soviet Union. Throwing thousands of brave South Vietnamese soldiers to the dogs and damning their nation out of hate.
And lastly, the US military remembers how those brave South Vietnamese soldiers held out against tremendous odds for almost two years, like Spartans, against the northern horde.
It is a bitter memory. So the US military swore that when the opportunity rose again to train a foreign military to fight to defend its homeland against an evil and vicious foe, it would not hold back.
It would do anything it could to insure that if that nation was again betrayed by cowardly, US congressional perfidy, that it could defend itself against most any enemy, domestic or foreign, that sought to destroy their nation.
And so they have. Right now, the army of Iraq, while perhaps not the best equipped in the world, has some of the best training and experience an army can get. It is combat tested, again and again.
A domestic foe would stand no chance against it, and a foreign enemy would be chewed to ribbons if it tried. And being blessed with oil money, soon the Iraqis will be able to arm their military with weapons appropriate to its level of training.
So in a short time, the opportunity may again arise for the US congress, in an act of pure bile and hate, to betray an ally. But it will do them no good. Iraq will remain, and it will remain whole, and it will defend itself, and it will prosper. And there will be nothing the bitter, hate-filled traitors can do to turn Iraq’s victory into humiliating defeat.
That’s pretty good. A reminder of who our enemy is. Thanks.
So be it bump.
NYT tries to frame this as a victory for the left.
The whole premise of the article is weird. We either have a troop presence in Iraq or we do not. Why is every brigade redeployment reported as if it is either a re-invasion or a full withdrawal? The number there fluctuates for various reasons. It has gone up before - it has also gone down before. It is going down now; it could go up again. All depends. The reason for instant and story-arc-placing news commentary on every fluctuation is unclear.
About 5000 soldiers who were stationed in Iraq for a while will soon be stationed somewhere else. Big deal. Calling it the "first substantive drawdown" is inaccurate (the number has decreased by more than 5000 on other occasions) and borders on propaganda (implying that this is necessarily the start of a trend when it may or may not be).
I have to say, you make some good points. I don’t trust the enemedia at all — and I trust their motives even less.
Wow!
That’s a great post! You pretty much summed up two American wars to the tee.
It makes me also think of all of the Democrat’s determined attempts to turn all of Central America into a Communist killing field during the Carter Reagan Bush years. It was the whole Iran-Contra b.s. media circus that turned me into a proud young conservative.
Truman didn't fight against the premature withdrawal of our troops from an unstable S. Korea in 1949.
A mere 4 years earlier, in 1945, S. Korea had been freed from decades of oppressive Japanese occupation.
In 1950, N. Korea easily invaded S. Korea, because Truman's administration had deliberately made certain the S. Korean army was weak when we pulled out
In response to the invasion, Truman sent Americans to S. Korea to fight in what he called a "police action" against "bandits."
During the last 30 months of Truman's presidency, 30,000 Americans died from fighting in Korea.
The phrase "The Buck Stops Here" should be on Bush's desk.
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