First they said the surge would be tapped out in January, then it became April, now it is ONE YEAR FROM NOW -- August, 2008.
By then we will be in a hot, hot war with Iran, China, and Russia, under martial law, and there will be a draft!
Unending surges for unending wars. You are going to take this, America?
"Analysts say Iraq surge can't last past Aug. '08" by Bryan Bender/Boston Globe August 30, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon cannot sustain its current force levels in Iraq beyond next summer, effectively giving the Bush administration and the Iraqi government until the middle of 2008 to capitalize on recent security improvements before the US military must draw down its forces, according to US military officials and foreign policy analysts.
[Good Lord, that is one more year of this hellishly escalating war?]
When the 15-month combat tours end for the nearly 30,000 additional US troops President Bush sent to Iraq earlier this year to secure the country, the Army will be unable to replace them without damaging morale or troop readiness, senior Army officials say.
[Unless there is a draft by then -- which there will be]
Those forces will complete their tours during the spring and summer of 2008, according to Army deployment schedules.
Keeping 160,000 troops in Iraq beyond the middle of next year would require the Army to reduce further the amount of time troops spend at home -- already scaled back from two years to less than 12 months in some cases -- before sending them back to the combat zone.
The practical limits on current troop deployments have led military officials and analysts to warn that there will be a window of less than 12 months for the military to show sustained, and sustainable, success -- and for the Iraqi government to fashion a political settlement between warring factions.
Many military officers and Pentagon advisers said they believe the surge strategy has had a positive impact in Baghdad and, if sustained, could provide the muchneeded "breathing room" Bush contends the Iraqi government needs.
Some specialists insist there is a real opportunity between now and next summer to give the Shia-led Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, enough time, security, and stability to broker a power-sharing agreement with the Sunnis and Kurds.
Kimberly Kagan, director of the Institute for the Study of War, a conservative-leaning Washington think-tank, who recently returned from a fact-finding tour of Iraq to assess the progress of the surge:
"Consolidating the gains depends on whether we keep the surge forces there for six months to a year."
Others, however, said they are concerned about the unintended consequences of the surge, which has been focused primarily on Baghdad and the surrounding areas. More remote parts of Iraq -- including some that had been secure -- have become more violent as insurgents are driven from the capital, according to specialists.
Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies:
"In the six months the surge has been underway, we have lost about 40 percent of the country to Shia factions. We can't maintain a permanent presence . . . in Karbala and Najaf. The British have been pushed down to three meaningless enclaves. Even the security of Baghdad could be lost if the Iraqi government cannot come to terms."
John Ballard, a retired Marine colonel who is a professor of strategy at the National War College in Washington:
"The surge isn't over when Petraeus and Crocker come to Washington. It will last at least eight more months, and that is the time when we have to see significant improvements."
[I didn't want this war, knew it was based on lies, and with each passing day I hate it and the people who lied to bring it about more and more!]
