Withdrawing troops from Iraq this year? You didn't think the Bush people were serious about that, did you?

Illustrating once again that wars tend to be much harder to get out of than to get into: Despite Political Pressure to Scale Back, Logistics Are Pinning Down U.S. in Iraq by David Cloud and Thom Shanker New York Times 05/14/06.

But despite the political pressures, and despite the argument by senior officials like Mr. Rumsfeld and General Abizaid that a large American presence may actually be fueling the insurgency, commanders are discussing whether the volatile security situation would allow any significant withdrawals at all in the short term, according to interviews with Pentagon officials and officers in Iraq in recent weeks.

Indeed, a trend of American troops pulling back to their bases and letting Iraqi troops take the lead has had to be scaled back, and the Americans have had to resume more active operations to help stop the widespread sectarian violence that has killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians in the past few months, a senior officer said. At the same time, attacks on American troops in March and April were at their highest point since last fall. ...

Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner II, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, is the senior American commander for security across the northern part of the country, an area where Iraqi security forces have made steady gains.

In assessing the ability of the Iraqi military to take over the security mission, he said, "The major inhibitor to independent operations is lack of equipment, manpower, their inability to sustain themselves and a lack of systems or policies in place to manage the organization."

So, other than having the soldiers, the equipment and the training to do their jobs, everything's going fine for the Iraqi Army!

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