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WASHINGTON — Four-star general-turned-CIA director David Petraeus almost resigned as Afghanistan war commander over President Barack Obama's decision to quickly draw down surge forces, according to a new insider's look at Petraeus' 37-year Army career. Petraeus decided that resigning would be a "selfish, grandstanding move with huge political ramifications" and that now was "time to salute and carry on," according to a forthcoming biography. Author and Petraeus confidante Paula Broadwell had extensive access to the general in Afghanistan and Washington

"President Barack Obama's decision to order a bigger and speedier reduction in troop numbers than advised by his top military commanders will increase American casualties during the pull-out, Pentagon planners fear." *** "On the ground, US commanders believe the announcement means it will now be necessary to abandon plans to take their fight against the Taliban to the violent eastern mountains bordering Pakistan where the Afghan war was born. They had wanted to try and repeat the successes since Mr Obama's "surge" was begun in 2009 during fierce fighting in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand."

I was listening to Mark Levin tonight; Levin pointed out that there were no flags behind the podium for the address to the nation. Usually when President gives an address to the nation, there are flags behind him.

You have to read carefully to recognize the change in policy here, but it’s a doozy. From the very beginning of The One’s surge last year, July 2011 has been held out as a set-in-stone date on which withdrawal will begin. Even at the time, they were playing games with that: The date was fixed but the number of troops to be withdrawn was conditions-based, so in theory Obama could keep his pledge by pulling out 50,000 troops next summer — or, if need be, just one platoon. As White House spokesman Tommy Vietor is quick to point out to...

BAGHDAD – Set to play a key-role in the reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq this summer, an all-in-one aviation unit from Fort Riley, Kan., arrived here in March; one of the U.S. Army’s last active-duty aviation battalions to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A U.S. Army Chinook helicopter with the 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, performs a hover test before departing on a cargo-moving mission from Taji Army Airfield, Iraq, July 7. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Roland Hale.As the Army draws down in Iraq, aviators with the...

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2010 – Iraq’s government and security forces have improved to the point that the commander of U.S. Forces Iraq says he is comfortable drawing down to 50,000 U.S. troops there by September. Video Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who outlined the improved situation in Iraq during a Pentagon press briefing today, said U.S. forces are ahead of schedule on the drawdown there. “I can’t overemphasize how much Iraqi Security Forces have improved. That’s what’s different today from a year ago,” Odierno told reporters. “I think it’s the right time to go to 50,000 and it’s my assessment...

Nearly every airman has forgotten to salute, missed a meeting, showed up for work late or flubbed a test. By and large, those moments strike fear in airmen’s hearts — and for good reason. A little thing, or a seemingly little thing, can kill a career as much as a big thing. You don’t have to commit a crime to get kicked out of the service. You can be handed your walking papers for simply being in an overmanned career field or flunking the PT test. And in these times when the Air Force is looking to get rid of...

4/28/2010 - AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFNS) -- Airmen from the 732nd Expeditionary Prime Beef Squadron are assisting with preparations for the increase of U.S. military members who have started to arrive as military officials begin to drawdown of U.S. military forces in Iraq. As members of the facility engineer team, a group of engineer assistants have set out to survey and provide visual representation of this 18 square mile installation. Their surveys will be used for construction management, base maps and drafting projects that will help use land and infrastructure for more than Soldiers transitioning through the base...

WASHINGTON, April 19, 2010 – Iraqi forces are doing a good job in maintaining security in the country, and the American withdrawal can proceed as planned, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said yesterday. Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said on “Fox News Sunday” that he expects it will take a couple of months for the Iraqis to form a government based on the results of the March 7 election. In that election, the bloc headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi earned two more parliament seats than the bloc led by current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Odierno said...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2010 – The Army is now 35 percent complete in its effort to move equipment and materiel out of Iraq as part of the U.S. withdrawal from that country. Thousands of vehicles and equipment that have returned from Iraq wait to be retrograded in a 3rd Army lot in Kuwait. The base receives hundreds of trailer-sized containers a week, filled with everything from medical supplies to ammunition. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Monte Swift   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Lt. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., commander of 3rd Army, spoke April 2 during a Pentagon...

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait, April 2, 2010 – Twenty-four-hours-per-day, seven-days-per-week, soldiers are spraying, scrubbing and wiping down vehicles and equipment at the wash rack here. Army Spc. Anthony Simms sprays down a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle at the wash rack at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, March 25, 2010. Simms and fellow soldiers with the 1058th Transportation Company wash equipment returning to Kuwait in the drawdown from Iraq, before transitioning it out to other locations. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jason Adolphson   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The wash rack serves as a tool for regular maintenance, but the water pressure has...

WASHINGTON, April 1, 2010 – U.S. special operations forces in Iraq will remain at current levels even as the number of American troops there is nearly halved over the next five months, the top special operations commander said today. As the 98,000-strong force in Iraq is reduced to 50,000 by Aug. 31 in accordance with a U.S.-Iraqi agreement, roughly 4,500 special operations forces will maintain a presence there, military officials said. “The special operations forces are not experiencing a drawdown in Iraq,” said Navy Adm. Eric Olson, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. “Supporting them is a continuing mission of...

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2010 – As parliamentary election results are tallied in Iraq, a U.S. commander there said it’s unlikely any outcome would require American troops to stay beyond their scheduled withdrawal. Polling this week has been characterized by military officials as a “historic” moment for Iraq that, barring a catastrophic event, paves the way for the drawdown of U.S. forces from 98,000 to 50,000 before September. Asked in a news conference today if a potential balloting result exists that could change the pace of U.S. withdrawal, Army Maj. Gen. Terry A. Wolff, commander of U.S. Division Central told Pentagon...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE MAREZ, Iraq – The Grafenwoehr, Germany-based 1st Inland Cargo Transfer Company has taken over the Central Receiving and Shipping Point here to assist with the upcoming drawdown of U.S. troops and equipment from theater. "Our mission is to deploy and redeploy units," said Sgt. 1st Class Waldemar Paoli, the first sergeant of the 1st ICTC, 395th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 15th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary). Paoli, a Yauco, Puerto Rico, native, said his unit, which took control of the CRSP yard Jan. 29, will act as the middleman between COB Q-West and bases in central...

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2010 – Iraq’s upcoming elections and the U.S. drawdown of troops there later this year will go on undeterred by suicide bombings today and previous attacks like it, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today. “Neither this attack nor any of the previous attempts to derail the electoral process and to destabilize the government have been or will be successful, nor do we anticipate that it will derail our responsible drawdown of forces in Iraq,” Morrell said at a Pentagon news conference. The United States has about 96,000 servicemembers in Iraq and will maintain that level in...

JOINT BASE BALAD – The Iraqi theater of operations is packed full of Army gear. Equipment, supplies, parts, trucks, weapons, tools ... the list just keeps going. To account for all this equipment, Soldiers here with the 514th Support Maintenance Company, 80th Ordnance Battalion, 15th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), track and inventory everything under the control of supply sections across theater. "The Army puts a lot of focus on property accountability, and my job as a supply sergeant for the 514th SMC is to carry this concept into our specific area of operations," said Sgt. Renee Messina, originally...

ALI BASE — This base, the first U.S. Air Force base in Iraq, is in full drawdown mode following the President's directive to lessen the American military presence here, and to withdraw combat forces by December 2011. The Air Force presence here will be less than one-third of what it is today by the end of August, according to Col. Dennis Hunsicker, 407th Air Expeditionary Group deputy commander, deployed from the 166th Airlift Wing, Newcastle, Del. The phased drawdown is designed to responsibly shift the Air Force mission from a combat posture to one that will advise and assist the...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1, 2010 – Progress in Iraq will continue as American forces draw down in the next year, U.S. commanders in Iraq said today. Army Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. Forces Iraq, and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, spoke about current conditions in Iraq during a press conference in Baghdad. Odierno said December marked the first month since the war started in 2003 with no U.S. battle casualties. “We had three non-battle deaths, but we had zero battle deaths due to combat operations,” he said. Iraqi forces are doing well in dealing with...

BAGHDAD — Just weeks before Multi-National Corps - Iraq cases its colors and rolls into the new U.S. Forces - Iraq organization, its commander said plenty of operational activity still is under way here. The mission here continues in support of the strategy of turning the security lead over to increasingly capable Iraqi Security Forces, Army Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby recently told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. U.S. forces in Iraq are “fully engaged,” supporting that mission in two primary ways, Jacoby said during a roundtable session Dec. 10. In addition to partnering with Iraq Security...

BAGHDAD, Dec. 10, 2009 – Three weeks before Multinational Corps Iraq cases its colors and rolls into the new U.S. Forces Iraq organization, its commander said plenty of operational activity still is under way in partnership with Iraqi security forces and on track with the U.S. drawdown timetable. The mission here continues in support of the strategy of turning the security lead over to increasingly capable Iraqi security forces, Army Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. U.S. forces in Iraq are “fully engaged,” supporting that mission in two primary ways, Jacoby said...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2009 – As Iraq’s lawmakers craft new election rules prior to January polling there, U.S. officials are confident that both the U.S. troop drawdown and the elections will be accomplished on schedule. “The [Iraq drawdown] timelines that the United States government and the Iraqi government have set out have not changed,” Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said today in response to a reporter’s question at the Pentagon. The United States remains committed to plans to remove all of its combat forces from Iraq by the end of July 2010, Whitman said. All U.S. troops are to depart...

INCIRLIK, Turkey, July 29, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said conditions in Iraq have improved to the extent that the U.S. combat brigade drawdown from the country may accelerate. “I think there is at least a chance of a modest acceleration” in the drawdown schedule, Gates said during a news roundtable today. Gates visited Iraq yesterday and today, and was pleased with the progress being made. As part of the U.S.-Iraqi agreement signed in December, American forces turned over responsibility for security inside all Iraqi cities and villages to Iraqi security forces by June 30. Gates said the...

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2009 – The force drawdown in Iraq, even in light of increased troop strength in Afghanistan, will enable the military to build more dwell time into deployment cycles, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today. “I think that with reduced forces in Iraq and with force levels I see in the future for Afghanistan, we can start to build more time at home,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said during a Pentagon Channel podcast interview. “I think that’s absolutely vital.” Mullen has been a staunch advocate of “home time” or “home tempo” to balance the...

BAGHDAD — In September 2008, the President of the United States announced an American military drawdown in Iraq. The drawdown is a return on success, which follows the departure of the five “surge” brigades, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, two Marine Corps battalions, and a majority of the Coalition nations. These reductions have been made possible because security conditions on the ground improved dramatically, the Iraqi Securtiy Forces grew in capacity and capability, and the partnership between the Government of Iraq and the Coalition continues to improve. With the passing and ratification of the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Security Agreement,...

The US plan to draw down forces in Iraq was anounced by General Petraeus in September 2007 briefing to Congress. The drawdown schedule is based on the Iraqi forces taking over responsibility for security.

Setting a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq would be “dangerous,” and troop reductions there should continue to be made based on security conditions on the ground, the nation’s top military officer said July 20. President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week agreed to set a general “time horizon" for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” but he added that to his knowledge, the agreement does not include specific dates. “I think the consequences could be very dangerous in that regard,” he...

WASHINGTON - Commanders in Iraq have decided to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces in volatile Diyala province, marking a turning point in the U.S. military mission, The Associated Press has learned. Instead of replacing the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which is returning to its home base at Fort Hood, Texas, in December, soldiers from another brigade in Salahuddin province next door will expand into Diyala, thereby broadening its area of responsibility, several officials said Tuesday. In this way, the number of Army ground combat brigades in Iraq will fall from 20 to 19. This reflects President...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2007 – The British government’s decision to cut its forces in Iraq by half in the coming months has been thoroughly discussed with Multinational Force Iraq commanders and U.S. officials, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said here today. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Parliament on Oct. 8 that he would remove half of the 5,000-man British contribution in Iraq in the spring. British forces will continue to train and work with Iraqi security forces, Brown said. The British troops are based in southern Iraq around Basra, the third-largest city in Iraq after Baghdad and Mosul. Britain has...

President Bush has endorsed General David Petraeus's recommendation to begin withdrawing 30,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer. Yet the drawdown would only restore troop levels to where they were before the surge began in January 2007. In the final months of 2006, debate in Washington centered on how fast a reduction from pre-surge levels could occur. The Iraq Study Group recommended that approximately half of the 130,000 troops then in Iraq be withdrawn by early 2008. In marked contrast to that and similar proposals, President Bush is now endorsing a step that would mean a return to the...

The elections were turned into a referendum (of sorts) on the war in Iraq - and the people have spoken. You and I -and the President might not like what was said - but it WAS said, and it's time to be practical-even if it means turning to someone in the opposition for advice.

 The Army’s Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker, has recently done something extraordinary within the realm of Beltway politics – he told the truth about our Army’s readiness. His message before the House Committee on the Armed Services was simple and disturbing: Five years after 9-11 and the US Army, the service that bears the largest burden in this conflict, is still struggling to build a force capable of conducting a long -term global war within established budget constraints.  This grim assessment may be hard for some to accept, but we need to know the unvarnished truth if we are to be...

Rice Talks of Conditional U.S. Drawdown 41 minutes ago Echoing military commanders, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday the U.S. could withdraw a significant number of troops from Iraq this year if Iraqi forces are able to assume greater control of the country's security. "I think it's entirely probable that we will see a significant drawdown of American forces over the next year. ... It's all dependent on events on the ground," the chief American diplomat said. Just this past week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declined to predict when U.S. forces would be out of Iraq. President Bush...

WASHINGTON - President Bush is to announce on Monday that the United States will withdraw up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in the most significant rearrangement of the American military since the end of the Cold War, an administration official said Saturday.   Bush will also announce in a speech on Monday that the withdrawal will affect an additional 100,000 military support staff and family members, who will leave the regions as well.    Bush's plan, first reported by the Financial Times of London, comes at a time when the Army is stretched thin by large deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan,...

February 5, 2004 ARLINGTON, Va. — Facing manning excesses, the Air Force has announced it needs to get rid of 16,600 airmen over the next 18 months. Soaring retention rates and stop-loss orders have boosted the service's manning levels beyond the authorized end strength of 359,000, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper said in a Jan. 29 message to the force.As a result, "By the end of [fiscal] 2005, we should reduce the size of our active force by 16,000 people, and we must reshape the force to correct existing skill imbalances and account for a new...

US to begin drawdown in Iraq In coming weeks, 18,000 troops in northern Iraq will be replaced with a force half that size. By Dan Murphy | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor MOSUL, IRAQ – It's been dubbed the "Mosul model" - where US soldiers have been in the vanguard of everything from setting up local governing councils to running a "Star Search" program on local TV. The 101st Airborne Division's approach to waging peace in this northern Iraqi city is frequently lauded as the ideal of what men and women trained for war can accomplish by setting their...

Newsweek reports this week that although the war with Iraq has not begun, "So far the big battles are in Washington, not Baghdad." The magazine notes that "Secretary of State Colin Powell, the only combat veteran among Bush’s senior aides, is said to be determined that if U.S. troops are committed, they go in with overwhelming force. Vice President Dick Cheney (who had student and parent deferments during Vietnam) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (a Navy pilot in the years between Korea and Vietnam) are eager to finish the job Bush’s father started when he was president." Both...