Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy

[frogcycle]

By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said training Iraqis remains important. "We are just adding another leg to our mission," Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.

But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention of training Iraqi troops on Thursday during a visit to Iraq.

-more -

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17104704.htm

[Phredicles]

1. Now that you mention it, "When they stand up, we'll stand down"

does seem to have gone the way of "We'll smoke 'im out", etc., etc.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. how many times have our "objectives", techniques, plans

and programs changed course?

TO the average Iraqi, we must look insane. The the rest of the world, we must look deluded and inept. To most of us, we simply are wrong.

[rodeodance]

3. "When they stand up, We stand down" (Bush mantra)----umm.. another

one down the tube!

[whistle]

4. Iraq Surge = War Escalation + Spread

[frogcycle]

5. "now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled pro"

Well, then we'd better go find the 400,000 Shinsecki said would be needed