US Has No Intention of Leaving Iraq Ever
by Ian Mosley
It’s not just the monstrous U.S. Embassy that Bush is building in Baghdad which indicates that the United States has no intention of leaving Iraq in the lifetime of anyone reading these lines. The cat is pretty much out of the bag on the eternity deployment. Rummy’s replacement, the colorless flack Robert Gates, has confirmed that Iraq is effectively a US territory now.
Yahoo News reports “US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the United States is looking to a long-term military presence in Iraq under a mutually agreed arrangement similar to that it has long had with South Korea.” (We’ve been in South Korea for almost sixty years now. Some of us know grandfathers younger than that.) “Gates told reporters here that plans still call for an assessment of the US surge strategy in September but he was looking beyond that to the type of military presence the United States will have in Iraq over the long term.”
So in other words, in the administration’s mind, withdrawal of any kind simply isn’t being considered at all in spite of the daily butchery in the streets and in the desert. (more…)