Blogoland

Well, this post about a "a transition to a new approach" come September has been getting some play. I suspect the Republican Senator Crowley talked to is sort of clueless about what the Bush White House really believes (withdrawing is always defeat!). On a practical level, here's what the WaPo's Thomas Ricks, in a chat on Monday, says what he expects to happen:

Here is the bottom line on troop numbers in Iraq. There are two paths:

--If things go unexpectedly well and some sort of political reconciliation is achieved, then about April or May of next year troop numbers will start to come down, with about one brigade or more a month being pulled out.

Or

--If things continue to go pretty badly, with a full-blown civil war a live possibility, then about April or May of next year, troop numbers will start to come down, with about one brigade or more a month being pulled out.

The reason is that we don't have replacement troops. So the real questions are these three: How many troops will we take out? How fast will we take them out? And what will be the mission of the residual force?

I don't know about the latter. Haven't we been told for a year now that our troops can't continue the way they've been going? Only to be followed by troops on their third and fourth times around, shortened down time, stop-loss, reserve call-ups and other gimmickry?