Saturday, August 18, 2007
Nickel and dime
Remember the Bush tax cuts? Nickel & Dime would pretty well describe what most people received as their portion of that famous "beneficence". That worked so well that the Bushoviks have decided to apply the same strategy to troop withdrawal.
The White House plans to use a report next month assessing progress in Iraq to outline a plan for gradual troop reductions beginning next year that would fall far short of the drawdown demanded by Congressional opponents of the war, according to administration and military officials.Rumor has it that all the troops will take a number and they get to go home when their number is called. That should easily last until January 2009. Most of the troop withdrawals planned seem to be little more than unsurging the Surge. And tucked into the middle of all this smoke and mirrors is this little gem.
One administration official made it clear that the goal of the planned announcement was to counter public pressure for a more rapid reduction and to try to win support for a plan that could keep American involvement in Iraq on “a sustainable footing” at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
The officials said the White House would portray its approach as a new strategy for Iraq
Military officials said General Petraeus was still revising his calculations on what the exact mission of American troops should be, and how many would be required to carry it out. One senior administration official said the political debate focused too much on the overall number of Americans in Iraq. “It’s more than just the raw number of troops,” the official said. “It’s where they’re deployed and how.”In the middle of a civil war, the where and how of deployment may affect the number of troops who get to go home early, but it won't change the outcome. It will give Our Dear Embattled Leader another tree to hide behind until he can ship out to Crawford and not come back.
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