GEN. PETRAEUS WANTS SLOWER TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

All the talk coming from the Bush White House and FOX NEWS about how troops in Iraq will be drawndown apparently was just a smokescreen.

General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq, is quoted in the MARINE CORPS TIMES http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/Army_Petraeus_080218w/ that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will not be as fast as the Bush White House and FOX NEWS said it was going to be.

Violence in Iraq is definitely on the rise.

Also, the Marines and Army have been having difficulty in meeting recruitment goals.

Many of the troops in Iraq are now on their fourth and fifth rotation to the war zone and the National Guard and Reserves are also stretched to the breaking point.

Adding to the confusion the military faces, the Taliban in Afghanistan is showing signs of reconstituting itself. This week alone there were three suicide bombings in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of almost 200 Afghan citizens.

By Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that bring readers the latest developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Petraeus backs slower drawdown from Iraq

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff WriterPosted : Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 13:40:13 EST

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/Army_Petraeus_080218w/

The U.S. military commander in Iraq said today that while “there’s every intent” to continue reducing the size of the U.S. force there after the last of the brigade combat teams that constituted the “surge” returns home this summer, it would be “sensible and prudent” to pause the drawdown once the surge units redeploy.

Gen. David Petraeus said he had discussed the issue with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. Central Command head Adm. William Fallon, as well as with the chairman and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen and Marine Gen. James Cartwright.

“The consensus is that when you have withdrawn over one quarter of your combat forces – it’s literally a quarter of our brigade combat teams plus two Marine battalions and the Marine expeditionary unit – that it would be sensible and prudent to have a period of consolidation, perhaps some force adjustments and evaluation before continuing with further reductions,” said Petraeus during a telephone interview.

There is “every intent” to further reduce forces once the departure of the surge forces is complete in July, but the senior leaders agreed that further reductions ought to be based on conditions in Iraq once the surge forces have left, he added.

“So there should be some decision points, once the dust has settled from all those reductions, at which you assess the situation and determine recommendations for additional reductions,” he said. However, he said, U.S. leaders had yet to determine what decision point might be.

“We’re still doing the analysis to lay out how best and when best to make recommendations on further reductions,” he said.

Petraeus listed a series of factors that will influence any decisions on further withdrawals, including how enemy forces react to the departure of the surge units; local and national political developments; local and national economic developments that might “help cement some of the security gains,” as well as the prospect of elections in the early fall.

The general said that any notion that the debate over whether to pause the drawdown after the surge units leave was pitting him against the Joint Chiefs was “a vast oversimplification” of the situation.

“I very much understand the strain and the sacrifice that these long deployments have required, he said, adding that he and his family had “first-hand knowledge” of those sacrifices as he estimated that by the time he next briefs Congress in April he will have been deployed 52 months since 2001.

“We all want to reduce that strain and increase dwell time” for units at home station, he said.