Ah....here we have a Pentagon Propaganda Echo Chamber: "the military, fearful of Iranian influence, has sought a residual presence in Iraq of several thousand troops." What utter Bullshit.

Where is the rule of law??? The Commission on Wartime Contracting's Final Report states, "Inattention to contingency contracting leads to massive waste, fraud, and abuse" which has been a problem since at least June 2009. See: w w w . w a r t i m e c o n t r a c t i n g . g o v and www.usip.org.

Not to mention a ton of CIA assets, special forces, and un-counted private military "contractors" NOT part of the State Department presence. Also not counting dozens of drones that will be patrolling the skies of Iraq, controlled by those uncounted, invisible CIA "advisers" on the ground. For all practical purposes, the U.S. will be in Iraq for the foreseeable distant future. Did anyone REALLY think we would spend over $1 trillion over 10 years for a presence in the 2nd-biggest oil-rich country on the planet, just to throw it all away?? Please. From a geo-political standpoint alone - which is all Iraq was ever about, anyway - the U.S. getting a foothold in the Middle East is far too valuable to just walk away from. And we have absolutely no intention of doing so.

Don't forget, we have that Taj Mahal of an "embassy" in Baghdad to protect. Of course we could just lease it to the oil companies, it belongs to them anyway.

At last the private "contractors" will be accountable to Iraqi law.

Expect an increasing stream of this kind of story-nugget; it coincides with the election cycle.

Like those nested dolls-- or, more accurately, like the magic beans that Jack planted with such rampant results-- the True Meaning and especially the Political Implications of such reports are self-expanding grist for the mass-media commentariat, in both its corporate and "alternative" divisions.

Journalists, analysts, experts-- pollsters, historians, public-relations flacks-- and wonks of every size and stripe will enthusiastically congregate in marathon commenting frenzies to parse out the significance of this putative withdrawal and military de-escalation, with special focus on its impact on The Campaign.

The minority of the public dutifully striving to remain attentive and well-informed will, paradoxically, be overloaded and overwhelmed to stupefaction by the incessant chatter of professional Talking Heads.

Meanwhile, the long-overdue War on Iran will finally commence.

The State Department is run by AIPAC and Blackwater. Thousands of IDF assassins in the Imperial Green Fortress.

Let's get all the soldiers out and then let the Iraqi government kick out the rest if they want. No reason to get all negative. We got out of Vietnam didn't we?

Folks always think Uncle Sam is so diabolically sophisticated. Excuse me? Most of the Iraqi oil contracts have been sold to other countries. We haven't had a major military success since the 2nd world war. Everybody is making money off of us including our declared enemies and of course our own contractors who are mainly in it for the money. We're practically broke. OBL's plan of drawing us out and then bleeding us to death is working.

We have little in the way of a coherent policy. Along with just plain mindless inertia, we are hostage to interest groups, often at war with each other, which makes for contradictory policies and confusion. America just doesn't measure up to the powerful controlling mastermind of everything bad that you need it to be.

Most of it can be spelled DUMB.

Come on. Let's be happy that 40,000 in the military (plus thousands more contractors) will be out of Iraq, leaving ,5,000 contactors. That is big.

And those 5,000 will NOT have immunity for their actions.

Seems to me bush/cheney and all his cronies should be Kadafied for starting the unjust and unneeded iraq war, as well as the pointless chasing after osama's ghost into afghanistan where he was not there after tora bora anyway. oh but we cant say that as we are all unpatriotic if we do.

" That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end". Translation: That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will appear to end!

If the withdrawal of US troops is real, we should expect wholesale slaughter of Iraqis to follow as Sunnis and Shiites blow each other up while cooperating on killing the remaining Christians and Jews. Turkey will probably use the opportunity to eradicate the Kurds, and Iran will move in and pick up the pieces.

Our problem will be how to portray all of this butchery as a triumph of Obama's foreign policy.

Civil war is a certainty. You can't turn a traditional society's social class structure upside down and not expect a war. The Suni will never accept shiite domination as it now stands. The Kurds are just peasants and everyone will attack them.

Oh well. Humans will always be killing each other. As they always have. Modernity has only made it worse. And as long as oil is king the blood will flow! And oil will flow until 2050...

There is no mention of oil in any of the articles covering troop withdrawals.Iraq still has the second highest oild reserves in the world ...the main reason wht the US was in Iraq. According to Panetta, there are 1,000+ Al Queda in Iraq. Fields and pipelines are extremely vulnerable. Several thousand mercenaries will be paid by the US Government .. I believe an even larger number will be employed by the oil companies. This will become a major human rights problem with open warfare between mercenaries and agrieved Iraqis. And who will pay for this? It will not be paid through taxes; it will be paid at the pump. One more example of costs being transferred to the 99% . Everytime you fill up, you will be supporting the continuing tragedy in Iraq.