Mike the Usurper wrote:
No, by troops in Iraq, they're talking 30-50,000 guys still there in 2012. Kucinich and Richardson are both talking full withdrawl, the rest are talking gradual drawdown, and immediate change in the mission to training, border control and targeted missions as opposed to roving patrols, general checkpoint work and whack-a-mole.

I'm not sure how Obama would reconcile 50,000 troops on the ground with the words "complete withdrawl." I'm willing to reserve judgement pending a reference, but you haven't really countered my point that this isn't driven by the situation on the ground.

And your improving security situation is a mirage.

How long do the actual number of casualties need to be down before you will accept that the tactics change was successful?

The point of "the surge" was to but time for a unified government to come into existence.

The phoney political requirements set by Congress have absolutely no relationship to the history of the development of the present set of tactics other than that the Democrats insisted on the former in order to authorize the later. I'm not impressed with the left wing insistance that the fact that Iraq has, for example, failed to sign over most of the oil in the country to foreign investors is an example of why the current tactics aren't working and the troops must be immediately withdrawn. Are you sure you're REALLY uncomfortable with their failure to meet the milestones?

You can enjoy Sy Hersch in September here, who backs up what I say above, do a search over at the Washington Post of recent articles by Tom Ricks, or a quick search of the Google on any of the things I've said backs up my assessment.

I will read these references.

Leaving may start a bloodbath, but staying keeps the pot at boiling, and if leaving at any point starts the bloodbath, then we've committed ourselves to staying in Iraq forever?

1. We're still in Germany.
2. We're still in Japan.
3. We're still in South Korea.
4. We're still in South Central Los Angeles.

This is war. You don't get to quit just 'cause you're sick of it.

The stupidity of going there in the first place cannot go on to infinity.

How will withdrawing now undo the stupidity of going in there in the first place? The damage caused by going in there in the first place has already been done. Leaving is an unrelated decision. Leaving will result in a lot of iraqi people dieing and the rise of an authoritarian anti-western regime that will threaten our interests for decades and destabalize the region. Staying will result in less people dieing and the hope for an eventually stable non-threatening government. The cost of the later is American money and lives. The cost of the former is more American money and more American lives over a longer period of time. These are your choices. You cannot undue the past.

Pushing ourselves and the Iraqis into the meatgrinder an inch at a time is not an option, and that's what you seem to be advocating here.

I don't understand how a substantial tactics change that has resulted in considerable reductions in casualties on both sides consistitutes "pushing ourselves and the Iraqis into the meatgrinder."

Leaving pushes the Iraqis into a meatgrinder. The option you have that results in the least number of dead Iraqis is to continue the present strategy.

RE: The meaning of the NIE...