Heh, I'm looking forward to hearing what needs to happen before "mission accomplished (no, for reals this time)" is declared. BTW, your mention of Bin Laden gave me a "Mosh" (Eminem) earworm.

Heh, I'm looking forward to hearing what needs to happen before "mission accomplished (no, for reals this time)" is declared.

I'm scared the answer is going to be absolute peace or Armageddon.

BTW, your mention of Bin Laden gave me a "Mosh" (Eminem) earworm.

I LOVE that song. I watched the video so often in one day that I had the words memorized. In fact, I think I'm going to listen to it right now.

The condition for our withdrawal is the Iraq Government's ability for self-sustainment. Statistics from last week's Army Times showed the number of Iraqi Army, special operations combat forces or strategic infrastructure battalions has increased by 42 from June 2005 to February 2007. The number of these battalions that are either fully independent of our forces or operating with US Forces in an advisory role has gone from 24 to 92 in the same timeframe. With everything else being equal during that time (I'm not convinced that it is), the statistics are encouraging.

The Iraqi military, which we have had to put back together after we dismantled it, needs have a reasonable shot at keeping the government from collapsing. ... I might go into this more in-depth at a later date, but that's the one basic, yet unvoiced, condition that we do have.

Reply By: pseudosoldier                                            Posted: Thursday, May 03, 2007

Well stated.  ANd I agree.

You know what would have been a great idea? Have a post-Saddam plan BEFORE invasion. I mean, they spent almost two years planning the "invasion" part, and then, three weeks before we went in, Pappy Rummy said, "Oh . . . what happens when we get IN there?"

Arrgh.

Not a constructive comment at all.

Oh, it occurs to me that I never answered your question. Well, here's my analysis:

The Bush administration, after disregarding hundreds of years of history and fighting, went in to a country and imploded the government. They had a lot of hopes that were completely unfulfilled - they wanted the Iraqi army to remain intact, they wanted there to be some sort of power structure that would survive the decapitation of the regime.

Didn't happen. So there was no army, no local police, and no governmental system whatsoever. And thanks to Uncle Rummy, the whole debacle was under-funded and under-trooped (for lack of a better word). I mean, the Army brass said that it would take 400,000 to 500,000 troops to stabalize Iraq, and Uncle Lovespuds Rummy said, "Oh no, we only need - maybe - 125,000." Strong work, asshat.

So here we are, under-trooped, and minus any form of stability in the invading country. We're talking a country the size of California with over 26 million people, and we're supposed to stabilize.

And that's fine, and stabilization is the apparent, stated goal of the Bush administration. But let's be honest - ol' Gee Dub doesn't want to only make a stabilized country, his goal is to recreate Iraq in our own image, with a representative government and sworn fealty to Uncle Sugar-Sam.

Oh well. It's messy, it's nasty, and we're not going to get out of there NO MATTER WHAT until Gee Dub isn't president anymore. Arrgh.

[/rant]