President Bush will be taking credit for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the next four to six months. He will claim that it is because "the surge is working." Putting aside for the moment the fact that a surge which lasts longer than six months is probably more accurately referred to as an escalation, we must all remember exactly why those troops will be coming home by next April.
They will be coming home because their return is part of a regularly scheduled rotation.
For example,
The announcement affects about 35,000 active-duty troops, who all will deploy between August and the year's end to serve as replacement forces for those returning home, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. The units will deploy for up to 15 months. [Emphasis mine]
- American Forces Press Service
Here's what the Richmond Times Dispatch, one of the most reliably conservative and Republican papers in the nation, says:
There are 162,000 troops in Iraq -- the largest number since the March 2003 invasion. Pentagon officials have said the increased force likely would have to be trimmed by next spring because of training and rotation requirements. [Again, emphasis mine]It's not that the surge is working, it's that our military is stretched to the breaking point and we need to bring units home to rest.
As Devilstower said on DailyKos:
We're but a Freidman unit away from Magical April, when the administration will run out of troops to put on the front lines, draw back to the levels before the recent escalation, parade it before the public as a "large reduction in forces," and claim that they, not the Democrats, are the only ones doing anything about reducing forces in Iraq.Taking credit for the return of some of our soldiers in the next six months is like taking credit for the surge in Federal tax revenue every April.
So when you start reading stories about a withdrawl of troops initiated by The Executive, remember that these troops are being withdrawn because they are exhausted and have given all they have to give, not because the Administration strategy is working.
(Crossposted from Leesburg Tomorrow)
The Washington Post showed the many flaws in the speech referring to the charts' details: even Chris Matthews noticed a problem with the periods of comparison. And the withdrawals which would have occurred anyway because of the troop rotational element are used as deceptive arguments.
And the reasons themselves for the rough timeline for sending brigades home is antithetical to reason, unless we assume that the Iraqi "trained army" can/will take over with no ensuing violence. This nobody believes!
The Post tore apart even the General's count of the Iraqi trained army, reducing his number by 100,000 and giving detailed reasons why.
So the Decider will get more time because the General and the Diplomat feed their deceptive arguments to a Congress that won't really fight them tooth and nail over every point, through weariness of struggling against what can only be termed "Bullshit," the hopelessness of trying to get 67 Senate votes to override a veto, or just plain politics.
"Give us another six months" will always be their mantra. If their testimony had only taken into consideration their prior requests for more time and they had been honest about their failures since 2004/2005, they might have had some credibility. But the General is seen now as the beard he is for the Decider's non-policy, and more will die for nothing.
If Petraeus has been such a guiding light in Iraq for so long, why wasn't he given top command earlier? Why were his counts on the number of troops he had trained all wrong, two years ago? Why have his promises failed? Why is he only now raised by the Decider to the Olympian heights, as was Brownie, Chertoff, Pace, etc., when Petraeus has been described as our greatest general in Iraq?
Beam me up, Scotty.