...leave Iraq on TV the other night:NBC showed live pictures...as members of the last combat brigade in Iraq drove toward the Kuwait border, symbolizing an end to fighting in the country.
“We are with the last combat troops” in Iraq, the NBC correspondent Richard Engel said at 6:30 p.m. Eastern...
And I remember thinking, "It's about time; that was a long war."
A White House spokesman reiterated Wednesday night that the combat mission in Iraq formally ends on Aug. 31. At that time, Operation Iraqi Freedom becomes Operation New Dawn, with troops serving as trainers for the Iraqi military, much as they have for several months already. More than 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq; they will be reclassified as trainers.
What? Say that again? 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq? The difference is that now they will be reclassified as trainers? So when are we actually leaving?
Don't hold your breath. According to Wikipedia:
As of March 31, 2008, U.S. armed forces were stationed at more than 820 installations in at least 135 countries. Some of the largest contingents are the 50,000 military personnel deployed in Iraq, the 71,000 in Afghanistan, the 52,440 in Germany, the 35,688 in Japan, the 28,500 in Republic of Korea, and the 9,660 in Italy and the 9,015 in the United Kingdom respectively.
Altogether, 77,917 military personnel are located in Europe, 141 in the former Soviet Union, 47,236 in East Asia and the Pacific, 3,362 in North Africa, the Near East, and South Asia, 1,355 are in sub-Saharan Africa with 1,941 in the Western Hemisphere excepting the United States itself.
The United States has over 130,000 troops stationed in at least 135 countries? And over 9,000 in Italy and Britain, almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War and 65 years after the end of World War II?
I remember hearing Richard Clarke (above), the chief counter-terrorism adviser under President Bush, say once that the real reason we invaded Iraq was to establish bases there. If he's right, we're never leaving.
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