Obama Advisor: Keep 60-80,000 Troops in Iraq

Doug · Post by **Doug** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:00 pm

A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

See here.

Post by **Dardedar** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:02 pm

DAR
Surprise surprise. At least Clinton is smart enough to know to qualify any full withdrawal claims with something about "getting fully briefed on" the best way to do it. I don't buy any of it. As they say, possession is 9/10's of the law, and the US has possession of that land and all of that oil. I don't see that changing. Obama would just have to eat more crow if he wins. The above example is just a few feathers of the full bird to come.

D.

Proprius · Post by **Proprius** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 11:37 pm

It's a shame there are no bone fide peace candidates. Or any that have a snowball's chance in hell of winning anyway. Makes you want to write in Mahatma Gandhi out of futility.

Political competition failed when the opposition party became a "me-too" party. The Democrats even confirmed as attorney general Michael Mukasey, an authoritarian who refuses to condemn torture and whose rulings as a federal judge undermined habeas corpus. Such a person is now the highest law enforcement officer in the United States. - Paul Craig Roberts

Doug · Post by **Doug** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 12:22 am

DOUG
I think both Obama and Clinton would withdraw almost all our troops. The only difference would be the time frame. I suspect two and a half years would be about right.

Barbara Fitzpatrick · Post by **Barbara Fitzpatrick** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:39 pm

I know Hillary is planning - has planned since the beginning of the presidential campaign - to start withdrawing 1-2 brigades a month from "Day One" should she win the White House. She got herself briefed by the generals W doesn't pay attention to as to how quickly we could pull out without collapsing the entire structure behind us - and possibly ourselves with it - sort of the military version of retreat mining, it can be done relatively safely, but you have to pay attention to what you're doing. Her big issue otherwise is getting the Iraqi translators, drivers, etc out of there with our guys because she knows they painted themselves as targets front and back by agreeing to help us. Both of them are hoping to keep the embassy open (which does mean leaving troops, the number based on how Iraq reacts to us leaving). Hillary is hoping to bring the neighboring Arabic states and possibly the UN into the situation, in hopes of something akin to a real peace there.