April. It's the new September.
"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.
"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."
Memo the media: the punting will continue until Bush is no longer in office. Then everything will be the new Democratic president's problem and Republicans will immediately call for withdrawal. Republicans and the right-wing noise machine will go into full spin about how their new positions are completely reconcilable with and a continuation of their old positions when Bush was in office and how it was really the Democrats who got us to where we are today.
Just a heads up.
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