Pace likely to advise for troop cuts in Iraq

Source: LA Times

The outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders on the course of the war.

Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns that keeping a force well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 would severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for the next year and beyond.

Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop "surge," with force levels declining to pre-buildup levels sometime next year.

Pace's recommendations reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who initially expressed skepticism in private about the strategy ordered by Bush and directed by Petraeus before publicly backing it.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pace24aug24,0,43964.story?coll=la-home-center

Any talk of "troop cuts" by Pace is a lie.

Cut 10,000 and increase 20,000.

more years, not months.

Enlist, freeps. Enlist.

Color me unimpressed. On his way out the door, he speaks the truth at last. In a private session. Without a written report. Why doesn't he just dig a hole in his back yard and whisper it under the light of a full moon? It would have the same force and effect.

But it keeps his pension safe, sustains the myth of honor in the military, and gives him an out when challenged later about his role in this debacle. Mission accomplished, I guess. I've seen more guts at a congregational board meeting.