Cutting Troops In Iraq

The day of the State of the Union address on the 9/11 6 year anniversary, President Bush, for the first time, spoke in front of a Congress ruled by democrats. Bush announced the withdrawal of the troop surge which would bring home 5,700 troops by the end of the year and 5 more brigades by summer of 2008, while urging the democratic party to give him a chance at victory in Iraq.

The day after President Bush's address, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said that it may be possible to reduce the number of troops to 100,000 by the end of 2008. In March, Gates hopes that Gen. Patraeus would agree to continue withdrawing troops throughout 2008.

Would this be realistic?

In no way is 100,000 troops by 2009 the plan of the current administration, as reported by Robert Gates, although Gates stated, "That would be the math." This is if the current Iraqi Leadership begins to show extensive progress in taking full control, and a more aggressive crack down on violence and terrorism. Otherwise their current demonstration of slow progress will most likely be a cause for a substantial amount of U.S. troops in Iraq for a long while; afterall, you cannot just flag and identify an active minefield, as this type of threat will never go away until it is disarmed from its potentially deadly path of destruction and motives by a reliable force, not one that will fall to its knees.



Click the link below to read the article yourself, it would be extremely surprising if troop levels can be cut from 160,000 to 100,000 by 2009.

Source: Fox News
URL http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296868,00.html