Mike the Usurper wrote:
Problem 5, aside from Richardson and Kucinich, all of the Democratic candidates have said they expect there to still be troops in Iraq through at least the end of their first term.

I think we may be talking past eachother on this point, and this is the key reason why the democratic feild isn't looking attractive to me right now, so its a key aspect of the question I raised. Hillary says:

The most important part of Hillary's plan is the first: to end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home. As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration.

Obama says:

Obama has a plan to immediately begin withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year.

If by "troops in Iraq" you mean "sure there'll be one or two units," then thats not really what I'm talking about. I don't support immediate withdrawl, and I'm not aware of anyone in the Democratic feild who doesn't support immediate withdrawl. I think calls for immediate withdrawl are driven by domestic people who are concerned about the safety of friends and family in the service and are no longer under the impression that Saddam was connected with 9/11 or whatever fantasy 'caused them to buy into this in 2003. Its not driven by whats going on in Iraq. In fact, its the same tune the Democrats were singing a year ago in spite of the fact that the situation on the ground in Iraq has changed substantially in that time.

I'm concerned about my friends' safety too, but the problem is that we made a commitment when we went in there in the first place and we have to meet it. In the past few months we have managed to improve the security situation there and we have a fragile chance of successfully deescalating the violence. Pulling the rug out from that will simply create a power vaccum that will beget a tsunami of killing. It is extremely irresponsible to do that. In my mind its just as stupid and immoral as the decision to preemptively invade in the first place.

So I feel stuck between people who want to expand the use of tortue and people who want to pull the rug out from Iraq. McCain is perhaps an exception. There are obviously other reasons why I don't like him but I think whoever is president next needs to get Iraq right first.

RE: The meaning of the NIE...