Following Alice Down the Rabbit Hole - Bush's Iraq Troop 'Drawdown'

Following Alice Down the Rabbit Hole - Bush's Iraq Troop 'Drawdown'
A. Alexander, October 21st, 2007


It appears we've all followed Alice down the rabbit hole. Earlier this week the nation's newspapers and television news programs were atwitter with news of U.S. plans to withdraw a single -- one -- Army brigade from Iraq. That's all of 3,500 soldiers.

Of the supposed "withdrawal" the APs Robert Burns wrote, "Instead of replacing the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which is returning to its home base at Fort Hood, Texas, in December, soldiers from another brigade in Salahuddin province next door will expand into Diyala, thereby broadening its area of responsibility, several officials said Tuesday.

"In this way, the number of Army ground combat brigades in Iraq will fall from 20 to 19. This reflects President Bush's bid to begin reducing the American military force..."

Wow! Mister Bush is going to REDUCE the number of troops in Iraq. Wow!

Only ... err ... the very NEXT DAY the AP reported that, "The Pentagon is preparing to alert eight National Guard units that they should be ready to go to Iraq or Afghanistan beginning late next summer.

"According to defense officials, seven of the units would deploy to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity..."

So, the big Bush "withdrawal" plan is to reduce the number of Army brigades by one and then,"(t)wo of the {Guard} units will be full combat brigades heading to Iraq." Boy, talk about fuzzy math!

more...

http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?id=1711&ARCHIVAL=TRUE

I hope that the DLC Party in congress won't praise this as the "right thing to do"...