Already EXCEPTIONS to Iraq Deadline Are Being Proposed

[Orwellian_Ghost]

“Mosul is the one area where you may see U.S. combat forces operating in the city” after June 30, the United States military’s top spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. David Perkins, said in an interview.

In Baghdad, however, there are no plans to close the Camp Victory base complex, consisting of five bases housing more than 20,000 soldiers, many of them combat troops. Although Victory is only a 15 minute drive from the center of Baghdad and sprawls over both sides of the city’s boundary, Iraqi officials say they have agreed to consider it outside the city.

In addition, Forward Operating Base Falcon, which can hold 5,000 combat troops, will also remain after June 30. It is just within Baghdad’s southern city limits. Again, Iraqi officials have classified it as effectively outside Baghdad, so no exception to the agreement needs to be granted, in their view.

Combat troops with the Seventh Field Artillery Regiment will remain in the heart of Baghdad at Camp Prosperity, located near the new American Embassy compound in the Green Zone. In addition to providing a quick reaction force, guarding the embassy and noncombat troops from attack, those soldiers will also continue to support Iraqi troops who are now in nominal charge of maintaining security in the Green Zone.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/world/middleeast/27withdraw.html?_r=1

[jody]

1. I'll be very surprised if our troops are not involved in combat operations in Iraq 4 years from now.

[Tim01]

2. Seriously, everybody knew this was how it would go, right?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

4. Many

absolutely refuted this "possibility" while some of us saw it as a certainty.

We were called the cynics.

[MADem]

3. You want a paradigm to follow vis a vis Iraq? Have a look at SOUTH KOREA.

You heard it here first, folks!

[stillcool]

5. The largest embassy on the planet..

and who knows how many permanent bases. I can't imagine anyone who knows our nations history would expect a withdrawal of any troops, that maintain any of our over 1,000 military bases on foreign soil. I thought the basic U.S. Policy is to be able to do battle anywhere in the world, at any time. Am I wrong?