The U.S, withdrawal will inevitably lead to a greater civil war than is currently the case. But it won't be reported as such until after the November 2006 election. Not with the reporters being targeted by insurgents and any imbedded reporters leaving with their units. What will happen between now and the November election? We will be pulling out as fast as possible, and there will be no significant reporting of the increased civil war.
Condi Rice has already stated that the Iraqi army is improving and that very soon the U.S. can start pulling out some battalions. That is a strong indication that there is very soon going to be a steady draw down from 150,000 troops in December to somewhere about 90,000 late next Summer.
The withdrawal of 60,000 out of the current 150,000 will be based first on the fact that 12,000 of the 150,000 currently there are the result of early deployment and delayed withdrawal because of the elections in December. The rest of the 60,000 will be because the Iraqi Army is allegedly becoming capable of handling the combat duties and replacing the American troops.
Mind you, the fact is and will be that the Iraqi Army is no better than when they recently stated only one battalion is capable of independent operations. They will be heavily supported by U.S. military all next year until the election. That fact will not appear in the news reports that state the Iraqis are taking over the combat duties from the Americans. But that will apear to meet the requirement Bush set to replace American troops with independent Iraqi troops.
Bush's metric is that as the Iraqi Army can handle the job, the U.S. Army will withdraw. Everything will be pushed and squeezed so that it looks like the Iraqis are carrying the load, but the U.S. troops will be right there to bail them out. That will be spun to say the Iraqis are doing it all themselves.
The image here will be of a successful Bush completing the job, not of Bush folding, cutting and running.
When Iraq collapses into civil war after the November 2006 election it will be spun as a result of the Democrats forcing us to pull too many troops out too soon and (if the Democrats gain control of one of the houses of Congress) it will be spun as the result of the Democrats not allowing the government to live up to the agreements to support the Iraqis.
The short result? We have destroyed our military ground forces in Iraq and have to get them out ASAP. We really have no choice, and will be paying for this adventure for at least a decade. The resulting failure and civil war in Iraq is going to be blamed on the Democrats.
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