Bush Mulling Sharp Cuts in Troops in Iraq -- NYT (err New York Slimes)

ABC News ^ | May 26, 2007

[Kaslin]

Report Reveals Bush Could Take Out Up to Half of U.S. Troops in Iraq by Next Year

A New York Times report claims the Bush administration is seriously considering sharp cuts in the number of troops in Iraq. (Lawrence Jackson/AP Photo)

The Bush administration is developing "concepts" for cutting U.S. combat forces in Iraq by up to half next year, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

Citing senior administration officials involved in the internal debate over Iraq, the Times said the scenarios called for a reduction in troop levels to about 100,000 by the midst of next year's presidential election campaign.

[Big Giant Head]

I’m sure the Administration also has plans for troop increases, and other such scenarios should the need arise. Another duh article.

[etradervic]

I’m sure the Administration also has plans for troop increases, and other such scenarios should the need arise. Another duh article.

Right. Its a political attack ad disguised as a news story designed to further divide Republicans - as if we need help with that.

[sgtbono2002]

Citing senior administration officials involved in the internal debate over Iraq,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These Senior administration officials need to sought out and shot.

Whether true or not this ionformation should not be handed to traitorous reporters, by treasonous officials.

The enemy doesnt need an intelligence network. just an Ayrab intelligent enough to read the NY Slimes./

[EQAndyBuzz]

This article was written for one purpose only. For Democrats to say that the reason Bush is cutting troops is because the people have spoken.

Of course it won’t say that the people also spoke when Congress authorized additional funding.

[familyop]

Yeah...whatever. Then we’ll put a Democrat or soap star in office, so that we can keep dreamin’ our nation away. We wouldn’t want to have a real man running our country or anything like that.

[ClancyJ]

What difference does it make who we put into office?

The GOP never supports its leaders. All they do is trash the man and give aid to the liberals in destroying “our side”.

We do not have an army of people that will support the man in office, they criticize, they demand their own particular agenda on their own timetable.

So, we will lose our hold on power because none of us know the slightest iota about working together and holding firm against our enemyies - we instead trash our leader and the army we have.

[familyop]

"What difference does it make who we put into office?"

If we want to further enlarge our Judicial Branch, sue the enemy and make us feel better about Iran's buildup, we'll elect someone whose experience is limited to judicial work and drama. If we want a commander-in-chief, we'll elect someone with good military and other defense experience.

[ClancyJ]

But, of course, whoever is there will not be the perfect conservative and then we must turn against him and run him out of office.

We have few candidates and none are the perfect conservative - therefore, after all the work, after all the money, we will destroy him and his agenda. He is to execute our personal agenda or, of course, we will withdraw our support - that is never really support at all.

I am a might bitter about what I have seen on FR with the perfectionists who do nothing but destroy the mere mortal man they can get elected.

We had all the government under the GOP - and we did nothing but the bidding of the democrats. We joined in with the libs to destroy Bush, we ruined our chances to hold the congress because we were “unhappy” and were going to teach a lesson.

I want to ask who paid any attention to the lesson taught? That lesson got us Pelosi, got us the waste of government money on investigations trying to find something on Bush.

[Thermalseeker]

Its a political attack ad disguised as a news story designed to further divide Republicans - as if we need help with that.

The only real divide I see amongst Republicans (and Conservatives) is between the electorate and the elected. If the elected start listening to their constituents and actually "represent" their wishes as we elected them to do there wouldn't be much of a divide. Get the message oh great elected (elite) ones?

Of course, that won't stop the NY Slimes from trying to portray the situation as a huge rift......

[Steamburg]

Do you suppose that the administration is simply planning to replace them by forcing NYT reporters out of the green zone? It shouldn’t take long for these troublemakers to screw things up for their “insurgent” allies. Perhaps this kind of thinking could catch on. If we help them get together with the people they support, then we will be rid of them soon after. /sarc?/

[LZ_Bayonet]

A different take: The Iraqi's tolerate the U.S. military because it is in their interests to do so (Just as the U.S. is really only fighting this war for U.S. interests.). If the surge is successful, the moment the Iraqi people sense that AQ can be controlled using only Iraqi forces and limited U.S. support forces, they will demand/ask that U.S. forces leave the populated areas.

Go back to the interviews with Iraqi's in late 2003 and read how they were discussing how long they would tolerate U.S. forces. Bush is correct in doing this planning and I see it, combined with the recent support of the Sunni tribes (especially a surge of Sunni IP and military recruits)as positive signs.

[WesternPacific]

My son will be in Iraq during this time (new 15 month deployments). What bothers me is that the troop levels will be brought down for political reasons while leaving too few soldiers and marines on the ground, thus endangering their lives. I keep visualizing the televised helicopter escape from the top of the US embassy in Viet Nam.