Will Bush listen to experts on what to do in Iraq?

Yahoo-Congressional Democrats, emboldened by an independent study that calls for a significant reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq, say they’ll push for a redeployment as soon as this fall.

The 20-member panel, comprised mostly of retired senior military and police officers, said the massive deployment of U.S. forces and sprawl of U.S.-run facilities in and around Baghdad has given Iraqis the impression that Americans are an occupying, permanent force.

Accordingly, the panel said the Iraqis should assume more control of its security and U.S. forces should step back.

“Significant reductions, consolidations and realignments would appear to be possible and prudent,” wrote the group, led by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones.

The recommendation echoed previous independent assessments on the war, including the high-profile Iraq Study Group that said the combat mission could be transferred to the Iraqis by early 2008. But the burning question, left mostly unanswered by the panel, was precisely when Iraqi security units could take control and U.S. troops could leave.

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Posted by JohnKonop on Friday, September 7th, 2007 at 1:29 am | under Uncategorized | |RSS 2.0 feed | Comments and pings closed. |