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I think that it would save lives of American military and Iraqi civilians if we
"pulled out "tomorrow". The track record of the Bush administration is too similar to Baghdad Bob's for my liking, when it comes to accurate disclosure of the military situation in Iraq. Rumsfeld claims in a briefing linked below that trained Iraqi security forces now number 165,000. I advocate declaring "mission accomplshed", one more time, and then pull out.

Ustwo, earlier in this thread, I presented a well documented argument that details the complicity, support, and by the continuing relationship, (with no protest from the executive branch of the infamous gassing of the Kurds), the tacit approval of Saddam's regime by the Reagan and the Bush '41 administrations, until late 1990.
See:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=30

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=32

The argument that Saddam was supported by the U.S. for reasons having to do with a strategy of supporting Iraq to blunt the larger threat of Iran, rings hollow and empty when one counts the anti-tank missles delivered at the direction of U.S. to Iran during the same period, in direct contravention of the President's publicly stated prohibition of negotiating or supporting terrorist states, and Iran in particular, and in spite of vehement advice to desist by close advisors to President Reagan. See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/...e/index_5.html A reader can also observe in the timeline at the above link that other military support was provided by the U.S. to Iran in it's war with Iraq at the same time that the policy of aiding Saddam was justified as a way to counter Iran!

So now, "we have to clean it up", in your words. This sounds like the last refuge of justification for the continued occupation of a country that the administration declared so many times, posed an imminent danger to the U.S., and to it's own neighbors because of it's WMD programs. We were also told by President Bush and officials of his government that we were fignting them in Iraq, so that we wouldn't have to fight them here. This seems to be as dubious a claim as all of the others that turned out to be misleading and unreliable. Our own military provides us in it's briefings with little or no evidence that they are engaging "foreign fighters" in any signifigant or measurable numbers:
Above are three recent DOD briefings where several high ranking generals and Rumsfeld himself offer little in the way of admissions or facts to support a contention that the U.S. is engaged in a fight against "foreign fighters" in any signifigant numbers. 26 months into this occupation, Rumsfeld's comments in the third segment are most disingenuous; acting as if it just occurred to military intelligence to ascertain if the armed opposition in Iraq "Are they foreign fighters, Jihadist types?"

In the June 3rd news report, the Iraqi interior minister passes along firgures of 12,000 Iraqi civilian dead, in the last 18 months,casualties of the continuing
insurgency.

Here's the "news" from the other country that the U.S. has recently liberated, Afghanistan. The U.S. military presence there pre-dates Iraq by more than a year. Will another year of 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq bring this kind of progress?
Ustwo, 3-1/2 years after intiating military action in Afghanistan, our own State Dept. still does not deem that country's capital, specifically, the presumed secure areas where the U.S. maintains it's diplomatic mission, to be safe enough to permit the family members of diplomats to reside with them.
Unofficial travel to any part of Afghanistan (even to Kabul), by U.S. citizens is still deemed from a personal security standpoint, to be out of the question.

Is this the picture of present day Afghanistan that you, or most Americans, have planted in your head, as a result of listening to Bush admin. pronouncements of U.S. success and improvements there, at least in the capital, Kabul?

It cannot be demonstrated that the Bush administration can or will accurately disclose to the American people why we invaded Iraq, why we are there now in a larger military presence than during the invasion, or even, tell us whether we are battling foreign fighters in any signifigant numbers. I've documented the seldom discussed fact that the "liberation" of Afghanistan is vastly overrated.

I want our troops out of Iraq now, Ustwo, and in saying that, I am not supporting "terrorists". I am reacting to the reality that our U.S. administration has lost the trust of the small portion of it's citizenry that is actually informed about the circumstances of the debacles resulting from our post 9/11 military "adventures" in Afghansitan and in Iraq.

You are free to counter the details that I offer on this thread, point by point.
I do not see you doing that.