Left Fifth Column

The Kerry Amendment

John Kerry's recent call for a pullout from Iraq by 31 Dec 2006 has been hailed as adding one more voice to the number of those who have called for such an action already. However, the Kerry Amendment to the war spending bill for 2007 did not call for complete withdrawal from Iraq, it called for complete withdrawal of all US troops not necessary for training the Iraqi military.

The report by UPI says:

Under Kerry's plan, not all U.S. troops would leave Iraq. Those "essential to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces would remain," the announcement said.

So the question remains: How many US troops are essential to completing this mission? It is plausible that we could see a situation in which the bulk of US soldiers are kept in Iraq, but as "military advisors", who officially do no fighting but supposedly train the Iraqi military (which has proven to be hopelessly inept).

There are reports to the effect that the United States is planning a massive air and ground assault on the city of Ramadi http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11465, and yet we are told that the situation in Iraq is improving, and that Iraqi forces will soon be able to control the country with minimal assistance from the US. If things are going so well, why did the Pentagon send 3,500 more troops to Iraq http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3913864.html?

As the article cited above says,

The U.S. military said Monday it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq, has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency.

Does this signal an escalation of the war? Whoops, I think "escalation" is one of those unpatriotic left-wing crazy-talk words. But what else do you call sending more troops to quell and insurgency that was supposedly in it's "last throes" over a year ago?

posted by Cypher @ 6:48 PM