General Says the Current Plan Is to Keep 120,000 G.I.'s in Iraq Thru 2007

[Robbien]

By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: January 25, 2005

ASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - The Army's current plan is to keep about 120,000 soldiers in Iraq through 2007, roughly the same number that are fighting there now, a senior operations officer said Monday.

His projection comes as members of Congress are pressing the administration for a more detailed explanation of its plan for an eventual withdrawal, and as the administration is about to seek approximately $80 billion in additional military spending for operations in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan.

In a briefing for reporters, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace, the director of Army operations, said the projection is for the Army staff's planning purposes only. Actual troop levels follow the recommendations of combat commanders, based on the evolving security situation, and subject to approval by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. But he said the plan represents the "most probable" level under current assumptions.

. . .

Bush administration officials have repeatedly said they are counting on newly trained and equipped Iraqi forces to begin replacing American troops in securing the country, perhaps as early as this summer. That could allow the Pentagon eventually to start withdrawing the 150,000 troops who are there now - 120,000 Army soldiers and 30,000 from the Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/politics/25army.html

[CoffeeCat]

1. So, with what troops will we invade Iran?

Bush seems to have designs on Iran.

If this article is accurate, our troops will remain stretched to the gills until 2007.

With what troops does Bush think he's going to pull off some sort of PNAC adventure in Iran?

Worried...about how out of touch with reality the Chimpster seems to be.

[Robbien]

2. Bush doesn't plan to invade Iran

They plan to bomb then the Iranian people will rise up against their nasty ruler.

Hmmmm, now where have we heard that before.

[CoffeeCat]

3. "Bomb" as in "shock and awe"?

I'm unclear about the Chimpster's plans.

Does he plan to bomb as a punitive measure--as in bomb the major cities because Iran failed to comply and stop their nuclear weapons program?

Or...does he plan to bomb the sites in which he believes nuclear bomb/materials are being produced?

Thanks for any insight. I find it difficult to keep up with the plans of the psychopath in chief.

[Robbien]

6. A version of Shock and Awe

Did you read the Hersh article in the New Yorker? Hersh revealed that the Administration is working on plans to launch missile and commando attacks against as many as three dozen of Iran's suspected nuclear and chemical weapons facilities, perhaps as early as Summer 2005.

Such military strikes will trigger a "velvet revolution" of Gap Jeans-wearing young Iranians, who will peacefully overthrow the mullahs, in yet another Bush-induced outbreak of spontaneous Western democracy.

Yeah right.

[CoffeeCat]

7. Thanks for the reminder about the Hersh article..

...I'll have to read that for more insight (and terror, I'm sure).

"...suspected nuclear and chemical weapons factories" eh? Great! Maybe Bush can bring back Powell, so he can point out the mobile-weapons labs that will undoubtedly lead to the aluminum tubes which will land us right next to those "suspected nuclear and chemical weapons facilities."

Anytime this administration says that something is "suspected", alarms should go off, alerting us to the fact that whatever they "suspect"--just the opposite is true.

On another note--how can BushCo believe that our bombs will encourage young Iranians to overthrow the mullahs? How are they making that connection? We'd be the enemy worth overthrowing--certainly not the mullahs.

We'd unite the entire country against us.

Scary stuff, huh?

[UL_Approved]

10. Bush opposes the "reality based" community

Check out this article:

http://www.kanzeon.nl/doubt.html">Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend-but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously, as you will-we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Really makes you see why the press is afraid of this guy... :scared:

[tabasco]

4. After the sham elections ...

the priority effort for the military will shift to securing the oil facilities. We will disengage from attempting to maintain law and order and move to guard the pipelines. The oil will flow to pay the war profiteering corporations! Chaos will reign in the Iraqi streets.

The Iraqis were better off under Saddam. There was law and order. Now there is no law and order and foreign corporations are stealing their natural resources.

[FlemingsGhost]

5. KIA should be somewhere between 8-10,000 by then

Probably more.

The Iraqi resistance has proven their mettle.

[VegasWolf]

8. Gotta protect Halliburton's OIL interests.n/t

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. Dumbsfelt: " a few weeks, perhaps months, certainly not years"

ironjaw ought to have to choke on those pnac driven words.

[Moderator]

11. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1180227