Rep. Ike Skelton was the keynote speaker at a rally for the troops in Laurie, Missouri Saturday.
The ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee said a unilateral pullout in Iraq would leave the country, "a snakepit for terrorists."
But Skelton said he has a plan to gradually withdraw troops. His proposal: For every 3 Iraqi brigades that are brought to the highest level of trained readiness, one American brigade (about 5,000 troops) would be redeployed out of the country. Some soldiers would be restationed in Kuwait or Korea; others could come home.
Skelton said he presented the plan directly to President Bush, but it was not accepted.
"You have to have a formula to redeploy troops, I have a formula," said Skelton. "3 brigades for every 1. That makes sense. You can measure it."
Skelton also said he expects some troops to come home before this November's elections.
When I asked him how many, he said he had no idea. "If the security situation continues as bad as it is now, the reduction will be minimal," said Skelton.
Not surprisingly, he also predicted the Democrats will win back the U.S. House in November. He says that will make it easier to move forward with his redeployment plan.
Complained Skelton: "So far we haven't been able to debate it, or bring it to the House floor."
1 comment:
"Redeploy" is the exact same thing as a "pull out." In both cases we leave.
Skelton should be ashamed of him self for not telling the truth about the President's plan for withdrawing from Iraq - which is very similar to his in that as Iraqis "stand up," we will "stand down."
The one difference is that what our military leaders are doing right now is that we are basing our troop rotations based on what happens on the ground and what Generals ask for - not political pressure from defeatist who hope that we fail in Iraq.
Skelton is also Lying when he says that they have not been able to bring a vote for withdrawing from Iraq (or things of that nature) to the floor of congress. It has occurred twice. Once happened in November of 2005 with only four people voting to high-tail it and run.
Less we forget, our "redeployment in Somalia emboldened Bin Laden enough to declare war on us in the first place. Anyone care to wadger the consequences of loss in Iraq.. Driven not by actual military defeat, but by our own media and political ambitions?
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