[GAsux]

Kev,
With regards to your question, I guess my hang up with regards to the Iraqi police/army is the matter of "faith". I don't beleive faith in their ability is going to cut it. There needs to be some clear evidence that they can sustain a force capable of quelling the insurgency on their own and quite frankly I don't see that happening in the near term. Not to name drop but I don't know a single person who's come home from there saying they were remotely impressed with or comforted by the capabilities of the Iraqi forces.

But regardless, as for the solution question, I don't intend to be a no it all. I wasn't challenging the gradual troo withdrawl plan because I believe I know a better way. I certainly don't. Again my point is that perhaps at this point I've become a bit of a skeptic and beleive that at least in a conventional sense, this will not be war we "win". Either method, stay or go will have serious ramifications and come at great sacrifice for someone either now or in the near future.

At times I almost think perhaps we need more, not less troops, in order to get the Iraqis up to speed. The initial argument against it was that we didn't want to seem like "occuppiers" but at this point the people involved in the insurgency already think that anyway.

Just a my theory here but as much as I'd love to see everyone come home, I believe that if the 50,000 by 2006 plan comes to fruition, you'll see things get worse. I honestly believe the "bad guys" will wait us out as long as they have to believing that they can tolerate the death toll in much higher numbers and for a lot longer then we can.