Petraeus: More troop withdrawals possible in fall

Petraeus: More troop withdrawals possible in fall

More American troops may come home from Iraq this fall, but it's too early to predict how many soldiers will be redeployed and when exactly that would happen, Army Gen. David Petraeus told a Senate panel Thursday morning.

Petraeus, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on his nomination to be commander for the U.S. Central Command, told committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), that if conditions allow it, he will be able to recommend modest troop withdrawals in the fall. But Petraeus made it clear that it might only be one brigade combat team, which is between 2,000 and 4,000 soldiers.

"I will be able to make a recommendation for further reduction at that time," Petraeus said.

Petraeus, who has been in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq, has been nominated to run the entire command for the Middle East region. His replacement will be Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno. Both the nominations are expected to clear the Armed Services Committee easily, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said Democrats won't get in the way of these nominations.

This Petraeus testimony is much more toned down that the high level, hyped up hearing last September, which were carried live on several cable networks and garnered much more media attention.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0508/Petraeus_More_troop_withdrawals_possible_in_fall.html

Let's have a show of 'hands on the keyboard' that think this is a big surprise. Gee we might be able to announce a big reduction in troops just before the Fall 2008 elections. Does anybody think this hasn't been in Bushes plans for a couple of years at least. Does anybody think the Petraeus isn't doing Bush/Cheneys bidding on this. Again playing politics with the lives of our soldiers. I will predict that a big reduction will be announced and then once the election is completed something will come up that says they will have to 'send more troops', basically rescinding the announced reduction especially when the Democrats win big like we know they will. Bush is going to want to hamstring the Democratic president by leaving him/her economically crippled by the commitment of money to the ongoing fiasco in Iraq and a failing economy. That way in four years the Repugs can do their normal screaming about Democrats raising taxes and being tax and spenders. Of course the Democrats will have raised taxes and spent the money to clean up the mess the Republicans left them.