Troops coming home? Not so fast

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Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has indicated he wants to "pause" the reduction of US troop reductions in Iraq. Essentially, they'd let the troops that were part of the "surge" go home as planned, but then after that (by late summer), they would wait to see how things are going before sending anymore home. Because of the amount of time it takes to bring a brigade of soldiers home (about 75 days - ??), that means that troop levels in Iraq would remain constant from the end of the summer through the end of President Bush's term in office.
  • added February 11, 2008
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3 responses // Troops coming home? Not so fast

  •  

    The real surge that is needed, in my opinion, is a surge of Iraqi troops. I would like to see the number of Iraqi troops trained and equipped to protect and reubild their own country. That is the only way we can responsibly withdraw our own troops.

    mjsmith11
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    Sadly, maintaining trained Iraqi troops and a decent police force has been quite a failure. More times than not, as soon as they recieve training and weapons, they buckle under local cleric rule, and run off....with the training...and weapons we gave them.

    whyphilosophy
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    Number of troops doesn't seem to be the problem. There are hundreds of thousands of trained Iraqi police and army but often they are fighting eachother along factional religous and tribal lines. Our soldiers often complain about having to shoot at people they trained. I wish there were a clear solution.

    ocanada

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