Next six months critical to US's effort in Iraq... again?

[babylonsister]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0301/p99s01-duts.html

Next six months critical to US's effort in Iraq... again?

Top US officers say Iraq must be turned around or else face a Vietnam-style collapse, though such timetables have been given before.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

An elite team of officers that advises US commander Gen. David Petraeus has concluded that the US has six months to turn around the situation in Iraq, or else face a Vietnam-style collapse that could force the military into a "hasty retreat."

The Guardian reports that the officers who have reached this conclusion are combat veterans and experts in counterinsurgency and are among those leading the implementation of US President George Bush's new Iraq strategy.

But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone around the US embassy, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, said a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations. "They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn – meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," the former official said.

The Guardian also reports that the main problems facing the group and the US military over the next six months include an insufficient number of troops on the ground; an international coalition that is falling apart; an anticipated upsurge in violence in the south of Iraq as the British forces leave in the coming months; morale problems in the US military as casualties rise; and a "lack of will" in Washington and Baghdad.

As a result, most top military officers feel that the next six months will be critical to America's efforts in Iraq.

This is not the first time that US officials have presented a timeframe of roughly six months in which issues needed to be resolved, or else Iraq and the US mission there would collapse.

more...

[liberal N proud]

1. And the six months after that?

And after those six months....
They keep saying that and then bu$h can walk away and leave the mess to someone else.

[MasonJar]

2. Bush will never leave Iraq; there is simply too much oil.

[Robeson]

3. Who was it that said the reason they had no exit strategy was....

...because they had no intention of exiting?

[razors edge]

4. Best I can tell the have two

exit strategies.

1) your tax dollars will exit the treasury and enter their pockets.

2) oil will exit Iraq and and enter exxon's tankers.

[FrenchieCat]

5. It's like Bush said....the New President will have to be the one to leave Iraq....

Guess he was telling the truth....for once!