Big US Presence in Iraq Until Mid-2009: Commander
BAGHDAD - U.S. generals expect to need a large contingent of troops in Iraq until the middle of 2009, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Monday.
Such a timeline would hand President George W. Bush’s successor the task of bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq, more than six years after Bush dispatched them to topple Saddam Hussein. 
The next U.S. president will take office in January 2009 after an election in 2008.
Bush’s Democratic opponents in Congress want U.S. troops in Iraq, which currently number about 157,000, to leave sooner.
Asked about media reports that Washington envisioned a substantial American force remaining in Iraq through mid-2009, General David Petraeus told ABC News: “Sustainable security is, in fact, what we hope to achieve.
“It’s in our campaign plan. We do think it will take about that amount of time, as you discussed, to establish the conditions for it.”
Petraeus said he and his deputy, Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno, were working to determine precisely how many troops would be required.
“The key is really how much force do you need? The campaign plan lays out the general concepts, the lines of operation and so forth and the actual plans and the actual force requirements are something that flow from that. And that’s what General Odierno and I are working on now,” Petraeus said.
Petraeus is due to report back to Washington in six weeks on the success of the “surge” — an increase of U.S. troops Bush ordered to Iraq this year to help restore security, especially around the capital Baghdad.
He told ABC he expected to complete his assessment in time, after which he would be able to announce when troops can start to come home.
“We do think by about that time, again, that I will have enough of a sense … to determine at what point we can in fact begin to send forces home without replacements,” Petraeus said.
© Reuters 2007.
Long before then, the next war will already be in full swing. Not long from now in fact.
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This summer, Admiral Robert Willard will run the naval and air war games near Guam from his command center at Makalapa as the new commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Navy officials say three carrier strike groups will again be the focal point of Operation:Valiant Shield an exercise which will begin Aug. 6. They will be the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers USS John Stennis and USS Nimitz, and the conventionally powered carrier USS Kitty Hawk.
The Pentagon recently sent the USS Enterprise to the Persian Gulf, possibly to replace the USS Stennis, which has been there since mid-February, to work with to the USS Nimitz.
The Air Force said its part in Valiant Shield will include a mix of 60 fighters, bombers, air refuel tankers and cargo planes.
Unlike last year’s exercise there will be no observers from other nations.
(Gee, I wonder why?)
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So there it is I suspect. Sometime near or following August 6th, these ‘exercises’ will likely become the launch point for the next stage of the money war.
The “money party” will not leave Iraq. There is just too much money to be made there.
The embassy, bases and mercenaries need protection, and nobody is talking about abandoning them.
Big US Presence in Iraq Until Mid-2009
Ridiculous. Iraqi production is nowhere near capable of exporting 120 billion barrels of crude in such a short time frame. What are these people smoking?
rlaing: It’s what they’re drinking.
Those people are smoking the same
thing the anti-war(bowel) movement
are smoking, which has made them
believe they are potent not impotent;
smoking between sessions of impotent
marches, die-ins and critic bashing.
Most sincerely and lovingly, Dwayne Chandler.
So Dwayne or whatever your name is, will you be heading to Iraq to do your fair share?
Seems you like the war so much, why don’t you put your ass on the line?
Leave it to Russian history expert Condi-liar Rice to sum up why “they” hate us:
“There isn’t a doubt, I think, that Iran constitutes the single most important, single-country challenge to … U.S. interests in the Middle East and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.”
The kind of Middle East “we” want to see. Not the kind of Middle East the people living in the Middle East want to see. The kind where we keep providing the weapons of death to dictators in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel (semi-democracy for Jews only,) while also supplying weapons of death to the other sides, like Sunni insurgents and the Lebanese army.
Of course, Condi-liar, Gates and the rest of the loyalbushies insist there’s no “trade off,” which is obvious seeing as how our “eternal friends” the decadent, greedy, hypocritical Saud family of dictators, the home of most of the 911 perps, continue to supply arms and cash to insurgents in Iraq in a continuing effort to maintain power and hoard wealth and oppress their own people. Since Cheneybush can’t give them the Medal of Freedom, a few dozen air to air missiles should keep the oil flowing west…
Junior told everyone more than a year ago that Iraq would have to be dealt with by the next president. No one said much about that statement and I guess they were so numb from all the bone headed statements that this clown has made, they just let it slide.
Just like Bush, dumping his problem onto the Democrats, then blaming the Dems for the failure of this iraqi operation for “freedom”. And why should anyone listen to these generals who have showed poor planning and shameful offensives. These so called generals are a disgrace and our soldiers were never given proper training. I wonder if these losers military leaders ever did have a plan because the outcome of this war is a joke.