8-2-05,8:45am

The talking heads on the network news were all a-twitter this past week over the announcement coming from Donald Rumsfeld's surprise visit to Baghdad: the U.S. could start making 'fairly substantial reductions' in its forces deployed in Iraq 'in the spring and summer of next year.'

Hallelujah! The White House is finally bringing our troops home. The administration has even (dare I say it?) created a time-table for withdrawing from its folly in Iraq. Ring the church-bells! Strike up the band!

But wait. Don't pop the cork on that champagne just yet. There's a catch.

According to General George Casey, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, the U.S. could begin to draw down its forces in Iraq only 'if the political process continues to go positively,' and 'if the developments with the [Iraqi] security forces continue to go as (sic) it is going.'

Those are two pretty significant ifs. And, according to General Casey, both have to be satisfied. It may be possible to meet one of the conditions by next summer, but both? Seems unlikely. For instance, despite the President's sunny pronouncements regarding the capabilities and readiness of Iraq's security forces, Iraq is nowhere near being capable of fending for itself. Of Iraq's 107 military and paramilitary battalions, only 3 of them (2.8%) are capable of planning, executing and sustaining counterinsurgency operations completely independent of coalition forces. When those Iraqi forces requiring 'coalition enablers' are factored in, only one-third (at most) of Iraq's military is capable of even partial of independence. The rest can only operate alongside Coalition units, if at all. It would seem that 'if developments with the [Iraqi] security forces continue to go as [they are] going,' as opposed to how Bush claims they are going, the chances of the U.S. making 'fairly substantial reductions' next spring and summer are, to coin a phrase, zero to none.

The facts on the ground amply demonstrate the inability of U.S. and coalition forces, much less Iraqi forces, to secure and stabilize Iraq. The number of monthly car bombings hovers around 135, resulting in between 600 and 900 civilian deaths per month. At least 200 of Iraq's already meager security forces are killed every month, not counting recruits. Meanwhile, as been the case for more than a year, the strength of the insurgency remains between 15 and 20 thousand, 95 percent of whom are home-grown.

In light of the chaos and violence that continues to engulf Iraq, any claim that U.S. forces will be substantially reduced by next summer is delusional, at best. At worst, it is a bald-faced lie.

In truth, General Casey's hopeful prediction about America's future in Iraq was purely political in motivation. It was not serendipity that Casey made his remarks only days after recent polls showed that most Americans disapprove of Bush's dalliance in Iraq. Almost half of those polled see Iraq as harming the overall war on terror - an opinion shared by the CIA. More significantly, the polls show that almost half of Americans want U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq immediately. This is not surprising since nearly two-thirds of Americans don't think Bush has any idea how to get us out of Iraq. Clearly, the announcement about possible troop reductions in Iraq was the Bush administration's attempt to counter the free-fall in public support for the Iraq war. Like most politically-driven declarations, this one will turn out to be nothing more than a false promise. Or, in this case, a false hope.



--Ken Sanders and an attorney in Tucson, Arizona. Reach him through his blog: http://www.politicsofdissent.blogspot.com.