Withdrawal From Iraq or Political Sleight of Hand?

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by Amitabh Pal

The Bush Administration is finally serious about reducing troop levels in Iraq. Or is it?

A briefing leaked to the New York Times has General George Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, proposing that the number of combat brigades be cut by more than half by December 2007. The first reductions are slated to take place by September. Even bigger cuts may come before the next presidential election.

The question is: How sincere is this plan? Remember, this is an Administration for which politics drives all policy. Or, as John DiIulio, a former Bush official who resigned in disgust, put it, “What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

So, a trial balloon is being floated to the press to take some of the heat off the Administration. This may (or may not) be followed by substantial actual troop reductions, depending on whether Rove and his cohorts decide they can extract political mileage out of the process for the looming Congressional elections. If the promised reductions don’t take place, officials can claim that they had said that the withdrawal was contingent on “continued progress,” and that sufficient “progress” hadn’t been made.

Extend this scenario a bit further in time and you have the Pentagon and Bush’s Brain attempting to work in cahoots to pick Bush’s successor. Politics is being taken to a new level.

full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0629-30.htm