Iraq expects troop cut, envoy says

[Iraqi ambassador Samir Sumaidaie] said Iraqi leaders were engaged in a desperate juggling act. “They are juggling so many balls, and they know they have been handed even more balls,” he said. “And suddenly, one of the hands will have to go.”…

Though conceding a lack of progress, Sumaidaie said the Iraqi government wanted the troop buildup to continue “until we see real fruit.”

“The tragedy will be that after four years of learning and making mistakes, just when we started to get to grips with the situation, just when both the Americans and the Iraqis have begun to understand the dynamics … and get some of the answers, that the rug would be pulled out,” he said.

A senior Iraqi official said in an interview Tuesday that Maliki’s comments reflected “partly pride, partly it’s trying to resist [U.S.] pressure.”

But the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said “everybody knows our security forces are not strong enough and there would be a lot of bloodletting. But he wasn’t going to say that.”…

The official rejected as “fuzzy thinking” proposals to shrink U.S. forces and limit their mission to training Iraqis, searching for militants and supporting the Iraqi military.

“If you’re just fighting for your survival you might as well go home,” he said.

...and limit their mission to training Iraqis, searching for militants and supporting the Iraqi military.

I've still never gotten a satisfactory explanation as to what this "limit" actually means. What, exactly, are our troops doing there that doesn't fall under one of these categories? and why would anyone care about "limiting" them from doing it, whatever it is? It just seems to me like (if taken at face value) it would be a non-operative "limit" that would have no effect whatsoever.

I mean, is someone going to say, "patrols"? The military shouldn't do patrols? What if it's a joint-patrol, isn't that important for training Iraqi troops? What if it's in an area known to have Al Qaeda, isn't that an important part of searching for them? A reasonable person could make these cases, and therefore, claim that such a patrol falls well within the proposed "limits" on our troops' mission. What would Congress do then, send Congressional informers to embed with the military and report back that some soldiers went on a patrol and it was borderline because they only took one Iraqi with them and he's already pretty trained, so the patrol wasn't that important to his training, and the area they patrolled was only rumored to have militants 6 days ago, so they weren't really searching for militants per se (arguably), etc etc etc etc.... and on and on?

I mean, come on. Just seems to me that in practice the "limits" wouldn't limit anything whatsoever, and are only in there to make the surrender position seem more "reasonable" and go down easier. ("We're not talking about complete withdrawal, just limits"... yeah right... meaningless "limits" through which you eventually plan to sneak in full-withdrawal)

If they would limit something, then what, and why? and how would the "limit" be enforced exactly? Would some judge evaluate each and every order for whether it falls within the "limits"?

...and limit their mission to training Iraqis, searching for militants and supporting the Iraqi military.

If they would limit something, then what, and why? and how would the "limit" be enforced exactly? Would some judge evaluate each and every order for whether it falls within the "limits"?

The official rejected as “fuzzy thinking” proposals to shrink U.S. forces and limit their mission to training Iraqis, searching for militants and supporting the Iraqi military.

Police actions have an even more stringent rules of engagement that would cause more deaths of US soldiers and give the Rats something more to whine and complain about until their objective of total surrender was realized.

What is deliciously ironic about this whole situation with Democrats calling for retreat is that they are actually helping the cause they are trying to sabotage. What they are doing is scaring the everyday people of Iraq into action. They are afraid of American troops leaving too soon. So now more Iraqis are providing tips on hideouts and Al-Qaeda movement. This is probably attributable as much to the Democrats as it is to the goodwill of our troops. So thanks Democrats!

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