Former Iraq administrator sees decades-long U.S. military presence

[plurality]

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0204/020604cdam3.htm

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the former interim administrator of post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Iraq, said Thursday that a U.S. military presence in Iraq should last "the next few decades," but questioned the mix of forces already there and current plans to reconfigure the armed forces as a whole.

Echoing concerns raised by lawmakers at this week's defense budget hearings, Garner said in an interview with National Journal Group reporters and editors that the size of the Army and Marine Corps should be increased by enlarging the infantry or ground forces. And he warned that the current strain on National Guard and Reserve forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan could cripple efforts to retain experienced soldiers.

snip

Noting how establishing U.S. naval bases in the Philippines in the early 1900s allowed the United States to maintain a "great presence in the Pacific," Garner said, "To me that's what Iraq is for the next few decades. We ought to have something there ... that gives us great presence in the Middle East. I think that's going to be necessary."

I love the smell of imperialism in the morning.

[indepat]

1. Gee, and I thought we would be out in only a decade or two

[teryang]

2. Safe prediction

We'll be forced out of Iraq a lot quicker than we were forced out of the Phillipines.

I love this naked 19th Century Imperialism. Will one of Garner's grandchildren become an Administrator of Iraq?