Iraq Must Decide Within Weeks if U.S. Troops Will Stay Past 2011, Top Official Says

[tekisui]

Source: New York Times

BAGHDAD — The United States’ senior military official warned the Iraqi government on Friday that it had only a few weeks to decide whether American forces would remain after the end of the year.

The official, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there were “irrevocable logistics and operational decisions” that had to be made by the United States before the withdrawal of forces was scheduled to accelerate.

“For the withdrawal, there’s what I call a physics problem,” Admiral Mullen said at a news conference at Camp Victory, the sprawling American base here. “We have 47,000 troops here, lots of equipment, and physically it just takes time to move them.”

He said, “Time is running short for any negotiations to occur.”

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[tekisui]

1. Drip, drip, drip. Will we ever actually leave?

I'm not so sure.

[TheKentuckian]

2. That's okay by many "liberals" now. If Bush was still in office then leaving an ice tray would be a

war crime and there would be protests at the possibility of creeping engagement.

Many partisans in both parties are absolutely amoral and policy agnostic.
It is all about their team winning. If they do the exact same shit, it is perfectly cool, the outrage is just campaign talk.

[tekisui]

3. Exactly. For so many it no different than routing for a sporting team.

It is amazing the double thought and self delusion required of blind support.

[obxhead]

4. Prior to the election of Obama there was thread

every day here calling for ending the Iraq war.

Today it is acceptable on this same site with many of the same users to completely ignore that the war in Iraq rages on draining lives and treasure from both the US and Iraq.

[tekisui]

5. Not only ignore it, but defend it.

[crickets]

6. “Time is running short for any negotiations to occur.” -- Negotiations already occurred.

Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Timeline
http://www.chrisweigant.com/2010/08/02/obamas-iraq-withdrawal-timeline/

A little history of how this was hammered out is relevant here. Bush started from the position "no timetables for withdrawal," which he stuck to as long as he could. Then he tried a Machiavellian way of having his cake and eating it too -- he tried to "fuzzy up" the language, so that he could claim to the American public that there was no timetable in the agreement, while the Iraqis could claim to their public that there was a hard deadline for withdrawal. Perhaps "Orwellian" is a better way to describe this, as it gave rise to the Bush administration's memorable phrase "we have only agreed to aspirational goals for a time horizon," which he really, really hoped would work. It didn't. Not only did the American media actually scoff at such horse manure (asking "what exactly is an 'aspirational goal for a time horizon'?" but the Iraqi public didn't buy it either. Maliki went back to the negotiating table and demanded clear language and a clear timeline for withdrawal. Bush caved. This was about the same time Maliki made friendly comments about Barack Obama's 16-month timetable. So Bush pushed back, and demanded that the timetable end one day before 2012 started (far enough out, he thought, for nobody to notice that it was what Obama was demanding and what Bush adamantly refused to back). But Maliki's countermove was even stronger. Maliki upped the ante, by agreeing to the December 31, 2011 date but changed the stakes to "all U.S. forces out" by that date (previously they had been discussing "combat troops" and not "all U.S. forces"). furthermore, Maliki added in the bit about U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraqi cities in six months, which (again) raised the ante. Bush caved, once again, and this is what Maliki got in the end.

In the OP's article:

The State Department is planning to roughly double its size in Iraq, to about 16,000 people, and it will require an army of private contractors to protect its personnel.

What are 16,000 State Dept personnel going to be doing? Why is an army of private contractors required? (As opposed to, you know, the ACTUAL army? Which is supposed to leav--oh.)


K&Rd to 5 recs earlier in the day.