Congress will pull the funding out from under the president, regardless of the political fallout, and in fact, the democrats will actually benefit from doing that. The troops won't but then it comes time for President Bush to make "hard decisions" instead of the Iraqi's. Iraq should be fighting this war anyway. If they want the damn freedom they have to die trying to get it, or make the sacrifices to get it.

No they won't. Because they know if they do their reelection chances will go in the toilet.

"No they won't. Because they know if they do their reelection chances will go in the toilet."

If they start talking about putting 100,000 more troops into Iraq, i.e. nearly doubling the commitment, sure they will. What choice would Democrats have over the president? They see the answer as draw downs and pull outs, not increases in troops, the only reason that part of the party is going along with this is that this appears to be the last ditch effort. There is no public support for doubling the commitment of troops in Iraq, certainly no democrats re-election chances would be damaged. Unless you supported more troops to being with. Which there were few democrats that did.

Who's re-election chances would be hurt even if you were Republican? I think the last election demonstrated that the patience for experimentation in Iraq is out. The majority of the public wants a victory, or a winner, and an end to the situation. An end to the violence. In the absence of a victory, or ability to end the violence, which is what we have right now, considering the victory conditions have changed drastically from the onset of invasion and pre-war run up... then they would like to prevent the continued sacrifice of American troops to morbidity and mortality.

The continued violence has not subsided, has not come to an end, upon leaving one area and declaring it secured, shortly there after insurgency sprouts up again like a bad weed. Well there apparently is no way to remove the roots. In the absence of security there is no ability to remove the insurgency. Without removing the insurgency you cannot stop the violence.

I'm not convinced that even 1 million troops could hold down martial law with as porous as the borders appear and the manipulation of the situation by Iran and Syria.

Removing the funding for the war, would perhaps be the only way to get a one up on the president and get the troops pulled out. Whether or not the president wants that to happen or not. I firmly believe that the democratic party is fully capable of making that stand weak as they are. It is up to the President, he had not created other options for himself. The latest stonewall from the administration, has been to replace generals on the ground, which may have been a better thing then worse, and then to have every official from Dick Cheny down to say "we are focused on making this plan work"... as if every plan they had had before that they proclaimed "stay the course" was the best one, the one that would topple the insurgency.

When do we say uncle here? Never, the British have been with us every step of the way since 9/11, in Iraq since the Gulf war, but they have finally run out of logistics, ability to fight the insurgency, unable to sustain overseas operations at the tempo that this situation has demanded because of the b.s. post-war plan.

Well we are not far behind. With troop deployments exceed 12 months 18 months, you cannot ask these guys to remain in the field for 24 months, though they would willing give that time and effort to this cause. We need to be smart, and choosy, if Iraqi want to mess around while their country goes to hell. That should be their choice. We didn't create this insurgency, they did. Because they did not make security their top priority, they have not made the sacrifices necessary to secure their own borders, to provide for their own re-construction. We have done that every step of the way and though there are things to show for it, but for the cost approaching $400 billion, we should be expecting more. There are also very key things missing. i.e. the ability to leave after 4 years, we can't get out even if we wanted to.

That is an unacceptable situation to have the army in, over-extended, too small, ill equipped, but battle hardened, because if North Korean marches on South Korea, or a nuclear weapons goes off in an American city, or Israel, what are we to do, up over our heads in Iraq?

Again, the only way to get out of Iraq is a new administration that makes that their goal, or removal of funding by the congress, effectively tying the hands of President Bush.

If you all want to sleep better thinking there are no conditions in which we would have to have a draft, do so. But there are, there have been before, and if we find ourselves in need of lots of men and women for the military, there aren't enough recruiters, no benefits package available that can come up with the ability to fight in certain situations.

Which is worse, not being able to defend our country or not willing? We will have to leave Iraq sometime, someday it would be nice to leave it better then we found it, but to continue to sacrifice our own deploy-ability, our own interests, our own men and women for their cause, a cause which they don't seem as interested in achieving as we do, then we should give serious thought to just calling it over and letting them solve it on their own.

"No they won't. Because they know if they do their reelection chances will go in the toilet." If they start talking about putting 100,000 more troops into Iraq, i.e. nearly doubling the commitment, sure they will. What choice would Democrats have over the president?

Great analysis, and I hope you are wrong (I will not say you are as we will have to wait and see if Bush wants to commit another 100k to it).

But I think Doc was talking about the here and now - not the if then. As in if they do cut off funding because of the 20k, then they would lose. And in that I do agree. Why?

Would they lose the Sheehan vote? Surely not. If they do not cut off funding, are they going to lose the Sheehan vote? no. But the Sheehan vote is perhaps 20% of the electorate. hardly enough to win. And the Rabid side of the right is about the same. Betwixt that you have the ones that may not agree with Bush - or may - but do honor and love the soldiers. And any attempt for the democrats to Hurt them to get to Bush will not be tolerated.

Much to the chagrin of the University literati (that really have no clue), America may not love the war, but they do love the ones willing to make a sacrafice for them. And to abandon them is the kiss of death.

I don't think they are able to cut off the funding because 21,500 more troops might have an effect. If the effect is measurable and progress is made then great. Then I'm for attempting to stick it out a few more months or a year.

What hasn't worked, at least well enough, since security is no better, was adding more troops in months/years past since the post war began. They have done it a few times, and extended deployments to keep troops in theater there.

The government has brought the army and marines up to speed with armored vehicles but the bombs are so big sometimes as to penetrate tank armor. The IED's are detonated in ways we cannot counter-measure. The influx of explosives is so rampant we cannot stem the violence. The insurgency springs up because we along with the government forces cannot do the damn job.

Like I said, at this point, a million troops might not be able to save the situation. Because the crack is already in the dam. The only part of the country able to run itself is the Kurdish region which has been self governed since just after the gulf war because of the no-fly zone, and that they have been doing it for a decade already.

"Bush - or may - but do honor and love the soldiers"

I think President Bush is a troops President, absolutely. I also believe that President Bush firmly believes in this mission, the destiny of Iraq however is in Iraqi hands, it is there country, not the 51st state of the United States. It would be a bad thing if the country fell apart, but I think it would be a worse thing if the country fell apart and we had nearly 200,000 American troops trying to stabilize it and Iran dropped a nuke on Israel, or North Korea decided the time was right to re-unite Korea.

We need to stay flexible and getting bogged down inside Iraq is with each passing day, becoming more dangerous then letting Iraqis sort it out on their terms. Each passing day, our deployments become overextended, Iran gets closer to building a nuke, and we don't have a real ability to respond to a firestorm situation with ground forces. That is a condition that has never occurred in the history of our country since WW1.

If it were our fight, if it were Flordia or Maine, we were fighting for I would say stay, but this is Iraq, Saddam is gone, a new government is in place, the people have gotten a taste of what it is to be free, I don't think that even if this government doesn't survive, that the Iraqi people will just give up the hope that was the great American experiment in Iraq.

Islamic extremism is going to continue to hurt us in any way they can regardless of what we do. Stay or go. There plans for our death and destruction do not change whatsoever no matter where our troops are. We had very few troops dealing with Iraq before 9/11, just the carrier in the gulf and the no-fly zone, we had nobody in Afghanistan. Yet they attacked anyway.

"but they do love the ones willing to make a sacrifice for them. And to abandon them is the kiss of death."

I agree, the only circumstance that denying funding would work in is if the President wanted to get us deeper into Iraq, not only would the funding become agenda, but the utterance of Vietnam isn't too far off. This conflict looks more and more like Vietnam with each passing day. No exit plan, changing goals, removing generals, stonewalling administration, insufficient measurable progress in country.