U.S. withdrawal from Iraq called 'unknowable'

[Whoa_Nelly]

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. military officer said yesterday he could not estimate with confidence how long American forces will have to stay in Iraq.

"I really do believe it's unknowable," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview with a group of reporters. "If I gave a good professional estimate, then that would be a standard that people would point to and, knowing that we can't know it perfectly, we'd get hammered."

Myers also said he was not worried about the possibility that the Iraqis will ask U.S. forces to leave the country once Iraqi sovereignty is restored this summer: "That is not a particular concern."

Pressed on the matter of how long U.S. forces might stay, Myers said, "There is not a range in my own mind."

more...
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-13/1077261629147560.xml

[BlueEyedSon]

1. There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.

There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

--Donald Rumsfeld

[denverbill]

2. Wait. I know, I know. It's called 'forever' or until the oil runs out.

After all, Osama forced us out of our bases in Saudi Arabia, and we can't risk abandoning the entire Middle East to fundamentalist extremists who might use the threat of an embargo to blackmail us.

[sangh0]

6. Nope. Just "forever" - No "or's" about it

There's a good reason why Bush* had and has no exit plan for Iraq - It's because we have no intention of leaving. We are in the middle of building four PERMANENT bases in Iraq.

[zbdent]

3. There's the problem of how to pull out if we take over in Nov.

See, Bush wrote a check that the US has to honor. He broke it, and probably had a good idea that he wouldn't be around to have to fix it (sounds like a lot of his life prior to 2001).

As the ones who "broke" Iraq (in the world's eyes), we will have to clean up this mess. This is the main reason I was pushing that the US needed the backing of the UN. If Saddam saw that the rest of the world was convinced that the only way to fix the situation WAS INDEED TO GO TO WAR, then he might have considered differently. Probably not, but at least we would have a true international backing, not just the countries whose total combined GDP is less than a T3 opening weekend profit.

[saigon68]

4. Dupe

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Link to dupe?

thanks

[saigon68]

9. Link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=373397

[plurality]

7. not worried about Iraqi govt. asking us to leave

In other words, all precautions have been taken to insure the new Iraqi govt. will do our bidding.

[loudnclear]

8. One thing for sure, Bush wants to hand over power before election..

That's a must in order for the Bushites to claim "liberating Iraq" and this they will do eventhough the a lot of the people may be worse off than under Saddam. Thanks to the US invasion, the country is now overrun with terrorists from every kind of group...al qaeda is not the only one. Under Saddam, this was not possible but now Iraq is a haven for terrorists who are coming in droves to be able to kill the Americans that are still there. It will look like this for years to come.

[Barkley]

10. Take up the white man's burden*

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

...

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.


*This famous poem, written by
Rudyard Kippling in a response
to the American take over of the
Philippines after the Spanish-American
War in 1899.

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. Thanks for the dupe link, saigon68

Mods please lock

[saigon68]

12. You are welcome

:-) It kind of dropped off the radar screen. Myers, however is a scum bag.
He is deep in the shit and not going anywhere. This war is financed with borrowed funds. While his E-2's and E-3's exist on food stamps, he hob nobs with the largest collection of corporate thugs and hoodlums who ever existed ( My apologies to the Krupp Family)