Congress to Pass Troop Withdrawal for October!!!
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...na-pol-us-iraq

WASHINGTON — Defying a fresh presidential veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass legislation within days that requires the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by Oct. 1 and sets a goal of a complete pullout by April 1, 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday.
In remarks prepared for delivery, Reid said that under the legislation, the troops that remain after next April 1 could only train Iraqi security units, protect U.S forces and conduct "targeted counter-terror operations."

Reid spoke a few hours after President George W. Bush said he will reject any legislation along the lines of what Democrats will pass. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable (for) withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job."

The president made his comments to reporters at the White House as he met with senior military leaders, including his top general in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

Taken together, Reid's speech and Bush's comments inaugurated a week of extraordinary confrontation between the president and the new Democratic-controlled Congress over a war that has taken the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Under an agreement by Democratic leaders, the final bill could trigger the withdrawal of U.S. troops as early as July 1 if Bush could not certify that the Iraqi government was making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political compromises.

The bill also would withhold foreign aid money should the Iraqi government not meet certain benchmarks.

Reid drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost.

He did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

Reid said that in addition to the timetable, the legislation will establish standards for the Iraqi government to meet in terms of "making progress on security, political reconciliation and improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis who have suffered so much."

The measure also would launch diplomatic, economic and political policy changes, Reid said.

Reid had made similar comments at a White House meeting last week among Bush and top lawmakers, and this time, the president's spokeswoman fired back. She said it was Reid who was ignoring reality, not the president.

Reid is in denial about the vicious nature of the enemy and about the U.S.-led plan to provide more security in Iraq, said deputy press secretary Dana Perino. "He's also in denial that a surrender date _ he thinks it is a good idea. It is not a good idea. It is defeat. It is a death sentence for the millions of Iraqis who voted for a constitution, who voted for a government, who voted for a free and Democratic society."

Negotiators for the House of Representatives and the Senate arranged a meeting to ratify the timetable that Reid laid out. The demand for a change in course will be attached to a funding bill that is needed to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reid said Bush was in "a state of denial" over the war, and likened him to another commander in chief four decades ago. "I remember when President Johnson, trying to save his political legacy, initiated the first of many surges into Vietnam in 1965," he said.

Reid said thousands more U.S. troops died in Vietnam as a result. Now, he said, Bush "is the only person who fails to face this war's reality - and that failure is devastating not just for Iraq's future, but for ours."

Reid also challenged Bush to present an alternative if, as expected, he vetoes the Democratic legislation.

The president said that Petraeus will go to Congress to tell lawmakers what is going right in Iraq _ and what is not.

"It's a tough time, as the general will tell Congress," Bush said. Still, the president insisted, progress is being made in Iraq as more U.S. troops head into the country to provide security.

do you think we're ready to pull out of iraq?

i dont think we should pull out just yet

Pull the fuck out! Jesus, how many more of our soldiers have to die in this pointless war.

The parallel to Johnson 40 years ago is right on target.

God, when will we ever learn.

I think we can all feel pretty thankful you're not running the country, Crypto!

Well we are not ready since, our President Bush destroyed whatever hope we had.

all i have to say is....



IT'S A TRAP!

Bush is just trying to save face. Pulling out would be admitting personal defeat. He's not smart enough to figure out a way to do it that doesn't make him look like he made a mistake.

Well that just mean you have not studied the subject well. Now that is a TRAP.

All I want to know what happened to Osama Bin Laden? Afghanistan?

oh god...
i cant even imagine what this country will be like if we have the democrats running this country in 08.

WE, the US of A, started this war, fed it, neglected it, inflamed it, and now we are just going to leave and ditch millions of innocent Iraquis in a bloodbath civil war we created? That is real nice. It is fucking RIDICULOUS.

regardless of how one feels about the war, it will be nothing if not wholesale carnage in Iraq if we leave. what about afghanistan? we never picked up the pieces there either and now the taliban is back witha vengeance.

cut and run is exactly the arrogance that the world hates about the USA. go in, fuck a country up the ass royally, then take off when it becomes an "inconvenience." such a fucking backwards nation we are.

we started this mess. we created this mess. we exacerbated this mess, and now we will run away from it.

The democrats are fucking ridiculous stupid fools, looking for a quick polarizing "statement" to get the liberals behind them. This si exactly what republicans do when they start emphasizing such non-important issues as gay marriage and abortion. they would rather talk about that because it splits the constituency up into TWO camps. That is what the democrats are doing with this pull out.

How many democratic senators and representatives ahave been in the military? I do not think it is that many. same goes for the current administration, who has a draft dodger and three others who did not serve in the military.

THANK YOU

we cant just... pull out
we have stabilize the situation first.

Well fucking said.

*CLAPS*

they cant stay but they cant go. the place will never be stable and has become a terrorist playground. at least someone go rich though eh.

true jon boy. the USA NY Stock Exchange market is reaching 13000 for the first time.
so add this up. record stock market profits, record trade deficit, record debt by the USA (mostly borrowing frokm our good commie friend China). record spending by our government on foreign wars and not on infratsructure.

who does this benefit if not multinational corporations who have absolutely no allegiance to our nation (USA) nor to our people?
How much fucking money are the friends of preznit dubya making off of this?

will somebody please think of the children?

The war was and is a mistake. It's a civil war. We have no reason to be there.

I had no idea Young Republicans were into Sonic Youth!

It's not even about being a republican... its about us being there and not being able to pull out just yet. Forget the fact that you think the whole war was a mistake, the fact is, whats done is done and we cant just leave just yet without making sure the country can run itself, yada yada yada.

the country will not be able to run itself for a very long time, if ever. its civil war and already real physical segregation is happening between sunnis and shias in the form of walls and fences put up by american troops.

i see that the country will be divided up and confict will rage there for decades, if not longer. thats not what i want to happen but seems likely.

how many western firms now have business in iraq? how many of those businesses do members of the bush regime or tony blairs friends own or sit as executives on? i would like to see the statistics for that.

meanwhile the body count rises.

I have always been wholeheartedly AGAINST this war.
To this day I sdespise the greedhead fucks that got us there on a personal vendetta by our braindead preznit.

BUT (and it is a very big BUT)

everything that has happened, the civil war, the complete lack of infrastructure, the corruption at all leves, the disbanding of the Iraqui police and army, ALL have been a result of OUR (the USA's) actions and decisions.

because of that, WE, the USA, are responsible for fixing this mess.
if we cannot we cannot, but to pull out and not try anything other than our "let's drive around and wait to be shot or exploded" policy is fucking STUPID .

as of last week the average Baghdad resident gets 4 hours of electricity a day, never knowing when. The average Iraqui gets 2 hours of electricity. there are minimal utility services, no garbage service, terrible sewage problems, no doctors, the hospitals and morgues are overflowing daily.

Each of these are a result of OUR policies and our actions and our inability to correct anything.

rob--
the problem is that iraq was always a bit of an "artificial" country. it was 3 different provinces of the ottoman empire. it was so partitioned i believe by the british empire, which sectioned off kuwait as a "nipple" from which to draw oil.
(that's why when saddam invaded kuwait he said that "kuwait doesn't exist"-- this was not understood in its historical context by the media).
anyway, the country was held together with the iron fist of tyrannical governments. remove the tyrannical government and the country will splinter-- simple enough.
iraq cannot be held together without force. but then there are all sorts of pressures, like
a) turkey does not want a free kurdistan
b) the shias in the south have allegiance ot the iranian ayatollahs
c) the sunni minority used to be in power and the rest of the country wants revenge.

as long as there are u.s. troops in iraq they will be seen as invaders and catalyze the insurgents, i'm afraid. this is a humpty dumpty situation-- "all the king horses, & all the king's men / couldn't put humpty together again".

the point is that for the u.s. to stay there is kinda pointless. and the longer the troops stay, the greater the impulse towards insurrection.

u.n. troops maybe... they are not so politically polarizing (unless of course you're in idaho).

--

ps- in my diseased mind, the best possible outcome is for a peaceful disintegration of iraq in which the kurds have their own state, the sunnis have their own little triangle, and the shias have their own state under the aegis of iran. if everyone is lucky, this would happen peacefully and without much ethnic cleansing. but we'll see...

I think that we need to send peace corps and americorps in there to build up infrastructure.
we shoudl ahve done something similar right off the bat, instead of sending an occupying army to teach a newly formed army what to do. and an army teaching policemen? that is stupid. army MP's do not function like actual civil police departments.

!@#$% I fully concur with all you say. Iraq was "created " by the UK, and run by a UK appointed leader for a long time. It is a splintered nation and a splintering nation.
this does not excuse the people that put us in there from fixing the situation before we get out of there.

He does make a point. Pulling out now, would be catastrophic on many levels,
not to mention total anarchy and no easy access to oil.

Americans have little patience for a war that drags on more than a couple years, and that continues to kill its soldiers. My bet is we'll be out of there within a year, because the political pressure will become enormous for Bush. If he doesn't agree to a withdrawal, he's going to bring down his own party.

THANK YOU!

yes, but how does keeping american troops there fixes the situation? american troops are an irritation for iraqis. did you see those marches protesting the invasion?

iraq is going to collapse sooner or later & what's needed are u.n. troops so that the splintering happens in a more-or-less peaceful manner. yes it's fucked but the point is that it CAN'T be fixed. there's a reason why the U.S. has withrawn from the international court of justice, you know?

Staying would be more catastrophic. We're creating the anarchy through our presence. We're making it worse.

ugh.

If you ask me, the worst is yet to come. Besides, leaving now would make the whole region unstable.
It's a paradox.

we have to stay.

All the arguments for staying assume it can get better. It can't. The enemy will never allow it. I was saying from day one here that we fell right into the enemies hands by attacking a muslim nation state for 9/11. It doesn't make any sense, never will, and that's why it will never work.

wow, way to be optimistic

he's telling the truth though.



he said that ^^ like 4 years ago.

you're a trap

how do you think the u.s. armed forces will make things better crypto? tell us your plan. honest, not a trick question. HOW?

btw, synthetically's brother is in the army so no wonder he's happy about a possible troop pullout.

i have friends in the army, no relatives though

i mean, i hope they come home soon, but they joined the armed forces for a reason
it was their choice to join
you know?
it still doesnt change my opinion.