Permanent U.S. Bases already being discussed with Kurdistan

I was just watching C-SPAN, and Iraq President Talabany's son Qubad Talabany was just on answering questions. The questioner, a journalist from Rolling Stone, asked whether it was true that there would be permanent U.S. bases in Kurdistan, mentioning that there would be 50,000 troops there indefinitely. An outrageous question, I thought. So Qubad answers -- "well, whether it's 50,000, 20,000 or 10,000, we haven't figured out that level of detail. But yes, it is now being discussed. Of course, we don't know how it would work if the central government (of Iraq) were against these bases while Kurdistan was in favor of it." That was approximately his answer.

The video is currently at the top on the front page of www.c-span.org.

Okay, this is just TOTALLY unbelievable. Oh, and here's the best part -- I googled this quickly, and there is NOTHING about this. Excuse me -- we're NEGOTIATING permanent bases that may house 50,000 troops and that's not news? What a f***ing joke this "troop withdrawal" talk is. According to this new information provided to us by an Iraqi, total troop "withdrawal" is only 80,000 troops, because we will need the 50,000 there FOREVER. Now, tell me again, Mr. President -- how do you define victory, when you have NO intention of EVER leaving Iraq?

as it is outside of Iraq. It is amazing that there is no coverage of this answer. Thanks for covering it.

This is the northern part of Iraq, dominated by the Kurdish sect. If Kurdistan secedes from Iraq, then you may have a point, but at this time, permanent bases in Kurdistan means permanent bases in Iraq.

with Kazakhstan. It clearly is Iraq and 50,000 is huge!

Anyway, a friend of mine had said we would NEVER have permanent bases in Iraq because we had Uzbekistan (of course, we have now been kicked out of there; plus they literally boil people alive there so that really was hideous that we cooperated with that country). This friend of mine is a Republican and voted for Bush, and said that it was ridiculous that we would aim to have permanent bases in Iraq (to her, it was unthinkable). I pointed out that Kerry said in the debates "no permanent bases in Iraq", but Bush never said that. Looks like I was right on this argument, but honestly, I HATE that I was right.

We are likely lucky to be out of there. It is amazing that this is getting absolutely no attention on the news - it confirms most of what many of the small group of pro-war people have denied.

This confirms we're there to control the area - something NO ONE voted for.