Turns out, not so much.
Eight months shy of its deadline for pulling the last American soldier from Iraq and closing the door on an 8-year war, the Pentagon is having second thoughts.
Reluctant to say it publicly, officials fear a final pullout in December could create a security vacuum, offering an opportunity for power grabs by antagonists in an unresolved and simmering Arab-Kurd dispute, a weakened but still active al-Qaida or even an adventurous neighbor such as Iran.
So now they think they’ll have to leave “perhaps several thousand” troops there. For how long?
[Defense Secretary Gates] said the U.S. would consider a range of possibilities, from staying an extra couple of years to remaining in Iraq as permanent partners. [emphasis mine]
Got that? Permanent “partners”.
This is my shocked face.
END OF LINE
[Source: AP Article on Yahoo! News, retrieved 4/9/11]
