Iraq asks US troops to stay for two more years

[JeffWartman]

It's kind of sickening the way the Democrats want to hang the Iraqis out to dry. It's obvious that if we are going to stabilize Iraq we need our troops there.

Our main goals need to be getting normal life back to the people in Iraq.

Iraq asks US troops to stay for two more years
By Alex Spillius
Last Updated: 6:49pm BST 11/05/2007



Iraq’s president asked America to keep its troops in Iraq for up to two more years after the US Congress voted to limit funding for the war.


Jalal Talabani met with Tony Blair yesterday
Speaking at the Cambridge Union Society, Jalal Talabani said Iraqi forces would not be prepared to take charge of security for “one or two years”.

“We are concerned and we hope that Congress will review this decision and help the American army to stay until the Iraqi army will be ready,” he said.

Iraqi MPs have also been visiting Washington this week pleading with Democrat legislators to support the war, but so far their appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

Late yesterday the Democrat-majority House of Representatives voted to fund US troops in phases dependent on the country’s progress, deepening its struggle with President George W Bush for control of the war.

The bill, approved by 221 to 205 votes, agreed to release £22.5 billion ($43 billion) immediately but told the president he must demonstrate improvements in Iraq in July before any of the remaining £26.5 billion ($53 billion) he has requested is released.

Mr Bush immediately threatened to use his veto on an Iraq bill for the second time, having last week blocked a measure that set a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces.

“I’ll veto the bill if it is this haphazard, piecemeal funding,” he said.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, said: “This legislation ends the blank cheque for the president’s war without end.”

Mr Bush “has grown accustomed to the free hand on Iraq he had before January 4. Those days are over,” she added, referring to the date when the Democrat party took over the House and Senate after winning mid-term elections late last year.

Since then the Democrats, who were elected partly because of the unpopularity of a war that has now claimed the lives of 3,379 American service personnel, have been on a collision course with a Republican president determined pursue his new strategy of taming the violence in Iraq with 30,000 troop reinforcements.

The legislation will next week move to the Senate, where it may struggle to pass as the Democrats only have a majority of two.

An intense round of legislative bartering over redrafting the bill will follow, with all parties hoping to strike a final deal by the end of the month.

The commander of US forces in Iraq today warned his soldiers not to abuse Iraq detainees after a survey found that one third of US troops approve of torture as a method of gathering intelligence.

Gen David Petraeus said in a letter to troops: “Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they often are neither useful nor necessary.”

A survey carried out by the army’s mental health advisory team and released last week, found that more than a third of US combat troops deployed in Iraq condone torture to obtain important information from an insurgent.

Nearly one in 10 of those surveyed acknowledged personally mistreating civilians or damaging their property unnecessarily.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/11/wiraq111.xml

 

[Annie]

It's kind of sickening the way the Democrats want to hang the Iraqis out to dry. It's obvious that if we are going to stabilize Iraq we need our troops there.

Our main goals need to be getting normal life back to the people in Iraq.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/11/wiraq111.xml

We're not going to. It is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out for the US in the next decade. Truth be told, we are Great Britain C. 1937; though with a heck of alot more money and ability, we are willing to toss it away. I'm truly not understanding why, but do understand that is what we are doing.

 

[onedomino]

We're not going to. It is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out for the US in the next decade. Truth be told, we are Great Britain C. 1937; though with a heck of alot more money and ability, we are willing to toss it away. I'm truly not understanding why, but do understand that is what we are doing.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." --Abraham Lincoln

 

[Annie]

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." --Abraham Lincoln

Exactly. As I said, I don't know why. I do know it's a failure of both parties, two branches. But we seem determined to do so.

 

[manu1959]

iraq should Pay for us to stay there......show me da money....

 

[Annie]

iraq should Pay for us to stay there......show me da money....

We chose to enter. Certainly wasn't necessary for US, we knew that.

 

[manu1959]

We chose to enter. Certainly wasn't necessary for US, we knew that.

true ... but it would seem that we want to leave and they want us to stay....they should fund it...

 

[Annie]

true ... but it would seem that we want to leave and they want us to stay....they should fund it...

I don't think $$ are the issue. We're leaving, sooner or later.

 

[manu1959]

I don't think $$ are the issue. We're leaving, sooner or later.

true but we could make a few bucks....

 

[Annie]

true but we could make a few bucks....

I'll not hold my breath, I do believe the Brits were the only ones to pay us back from WWII and if memory serves, the final payment was within the last decade. The Fed is NOT good at collections.

 

[manu1959]

I'll not hold my breath, I do believe the Brits were the only ones to pay us back from WWII and if memory serves, the final payment was within the last decade. The Fed is NOT good at collections.

lets take the oil then.....

 

[liberalogic]

It's kind of sickening the way the Democrats want to hang the Iraqis out to dry. It's obvious that if we are going to stabilize Iraq we need our troops there.

Our main goals need to be getting normal life back to the people in Iraq.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/11/wiraq111.xml

When we talk about this war, we tend to overlook the Iraqi people. I can't even imagine what it's like to live there. Unfortunately, the democrats are riding the wave of popular opinion rather than doing what is morally (in my opinion) correct, which is stabilizing the country. They cannot, however, continue to write George Bush blank checks. Any person who lives on Earth realizes how badly he has fucked this thing up and it would be irresponsible of Congress to let him continue on the same path.

There needs to be a new strategy implemented (personally, I like Joe Biden's idea of divinding the country)-- we can knock down all the doors we want, there will always be insurgents waiting to kill us and their fellow Iraqis.

 

[Diuretic]

I'll not hold my breath, I do believe the Brits were the only ones to pay us back from WWII and if memory serves, the final payment was within the last decade. The Fed is NOT good at collections.

You're right on the debt payment Kathianne, the Brits paid it off a couple of months ago I think.

 

[Diuretic]

lets take the oil then.....

What about the oil corporations?

 

[trobinett]

Iraq is doomed, those that stood up, and were willing to be counted are all but dead.

I feel like I'm reliving 'Nam all over again.

Nothing to be happy about these days.....

 

[Care4all]

What about the oil corporations?

ahhh.... "take the Oil" and hand it over to the oil companies while they'll shove $6 bucks a gallon up our rears and make record profits, and while our soldiers die and the tax payer's coffer is raped for the cost of doing such, and others will keep repeating that the oil companies only make 10 cents a gallon profit....without considering the possibility that it costs them only 1 cent a gallon to get it refined and to the pumps.....and life will go on for the top 2% without a blink, only smiles. lol

 

[Bullypulpit]

It's kind of sickening the way the Democrats want to hang the Iraqis out to dry. It's obvious that if we are going to stabilize Iraq we need our troops there.

Our main goals need to be getting normal life back to the people in Iraq.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/11/wiraq111.xml

It's kind of sickening how right wingers, of all stripes, are willing to make up whatever they want and pass it off as the truth.

<blockquote>On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition. <a href=http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51624/>May 9, 2007</a></blockquote>

I read and re-read the article several times, and saw no explicit request for US troops to remain in Iraq except in the title. Talibani is only quoted as saying that, "...Iraqi forces would not be prepared to take charge of security for 'one or two years'." No explicit request was quoted by the writer.

And I thought the main goal was to "Fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here...".

 

[Gunny]

ahhh.... "take the Oil" and hand it over to the oil companies while they'll shove $6 bucks a gallon up our rears and make record profits, and while our soldiers die and the tax payer's coffer is raped for the cost of doing such, and others will keep repeating that the oil companies only make 10 cents a gallon profit....without considering the possibility that it costs them only 1 cent a gallon to get it refined and to the pumps.....and life will go on for the top 2% without a blink, only smiles. lol

The liberal version of RSR speaks.

 

[Care4all]

The liberal version of RSR speaks.

hahahaha....there was an "lol" there at the end, in case ya didn't notice smarty pants!

it was most certainly an exagerated liberal view point!

Care

 

[Care4all]

Getting back to the initial post...

Two years will more than likeLY turn to 5-10 if we keep things going the way they are now, even with this "so called surge imo.

I say "so called" surge because we have had surges several times the past 3-4 years and some of them were even greater surges than what we are sending this time for this surge and it ended up causing more American deaths instead of fewer....

We need to poop or get off the pot...darnit!

If one was to say in one sentence what has caused all of the ills that have taken place in Iraq it is :

That after the War part, we NEVER, EVER had enough troops to secure the borders, and secure the Country of Iraq from outside entities....like Alqaeda and others....

The President needs to stop pussy footing around and send another 100k of troops in to Iraq to secure it once and for all so to allow them to live somwhat of normal lives and "like" us for it, and PUT SOME DAMN BACKING BEHIND WHAT HE SAYS HE BELIEVES instead of this 20k here or there additional soldiers that HE KNOWS won't do the JOB, that is needed to be done....

He needs to take the heat... the repubs need to take the heat and BACK what they believe in, EVEN IF IT IS POLITICAL SUICIDE.

This President has sat for 4 fricking YEARS NOT DOING THE RIGHT THING and now, as I said, even this surge is a JOke.... AND WILL do nothing to help us or the Iraqis.

Care