Another turning point ... or is it a tipping point?

ABC News 04/26/06:

As the top U.S. commander in Iraq suggested today that the United States would soon reduce the number of troops in Iraq, Pentagon planners said to ABC News that they hoped to pull more than 30,000 troops out by the end of the year, and possibly by as early as November.

The reductions depend on political and security progress in Iraq.

In a surprise visit to Baghdad, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hailed progress toward the formation of a new Iraqi government as a "turning point" that would enable the United States to turn over more responsibility to the Iraqis.

In late December, Rumsfeld announced a reduction in U.S. troops that brought the number down from 150,000 to 132,000, [around 135,000 has been the baseline number] and suggested more withdrawals would be coming. Casey suggested at the time that reductions would come by March, and the Pentagon had started planning to bring the number of troops down to 100,000 by the end of the year.

Instead of further reductions, 650 troops were added in March because of worsening violence and political deadlock. Plans for further withdrawals were frozen. (my emphasis)

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be Blest.
- Alexander Pope

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