Iraq Will Ask US Troops to Stay After 2011 - Panetta

Source: BBC

Iraq will ask the US to keep troops in the country beyond an end-of-2011 pullout deadline, says the nominee to be the next US defence secretary.

Outgoing CIA director Leon Panetta said he had "every confidence that a request like that will be forthcoming".

Mr Panetta was speaking at a US Senate committee considering his nomination.

(snip)

"It's clear to me that Iraq is considering the possibility of making a request for some kind of presence to remain there ," Mr Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13722786

BAGHDAD -- Five U.S. soldiers died Monday when at least three rockets hit a joint compound for U.S. and Iraqi security forces in eastern Baghdad,
the highest death toll for American forces on a single day in more than two years.

In the latest burst of violence in Iraq, at least 16 Iraqis also were killed in Baghdad and in the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, north of
the capital.

The U.S. troops who died Monday were stationed at Camp Loyalty in east Baghdad, a site that used to be headquarters for Iraq's General Directorate
of Intelligence during Saddam's regime.

A witness who lives in a high-rise close to the camp said he saw at least three rockets hit the compound. Iraqi police said the rockets had been launched
from a car on Al-Qanat Street in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in southern Baghdad. They said the car itself later was seen on fire.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/06/2253998/5-us-dead-in-iraq-is-worst-one.html#ixzz1OqY4tV5J

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No more .... time to go home

Who could have seen this coming?

Surely all US forces will be out of Iraq by the deadline.

Since they're being so hospitable and all.

they said it wasn't official administration thinking, that Gates was on the way out the door.

Now the guy that is taking Gates' job is saying the same thing.

Are we allowed to take this as the administraton's policy now, or will suggesting such a thing make people mad?

The only ones who dispute it are those who refuse to acknowledge reality.

:puke:

"We have always been at war with Al Queda, and always will be"

nt

I heard that somewhere.

deus ex machina would keep us there. What a relief.

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I find it hard to believe that they came to the decision that they wanted the US to stay on their own. I also find it hard to believe that the vast majority of them agree with this request assuming it comes at all.

Rumor has it that the USA has a history of arranging for puppet governments to make such requests.