Bush Fib- no. 4

In his September 13, 2007 speech on Iraq, President Bush said "now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home."

There have been various efforts, by CNN and others, to determine as accurately as possible the number of soldiers whom the President will be ordering withdrawn from Iraq. In any case, it appears to be no more than the number of soldiers constituting the escalation- er, the "surge"- 30,000. Although her prescription for ending the war, I believe, is off-base, Trudy Rubin in today's Philadelphia Inquirer correctly states:

What Bush failed to tell you is where things really stand in Iraq and what must be done to avoid future disasters. The president didn't mention that the force reductions he announced are not "a return on success," as he claims. They are happening because the military has run out of troops.

Ever since the surge began, top military commanders made clear that the 30,000 extra soldiers were dangerously overstretching the Army and Marines. When I was in Baghdad in June, every senior officer I spoke to said those troops would have to start leaving by March or April of 2008. Otherwise, the military could not maintain its already onerous rotation schedule.

There is heavy and open debate among top military brass about maintaining even post-surge levels. So the president insults the public by pretending the cuts are due to military success.

And commenting on MSNBC, retired General Jack Jacobs- hardly a dove- stated that the decision to cut troop level already had been made because the U.S.A. "can't sustain this level of military deployment."

Thus, the decision to remove soldiers has been, notwithstanding the President's remark, not made "because of the measure of success we're seeing in Iraq." And that's assuming we believe that Mr. Bush would determine that the best time to remove soldiers is when those soldiers are demonstrating success, a strange tactical policy.