# MAJOR RUMOR!! Bush to announce TROOP WITHDRAWLS! Wednesday speech at Annapolis! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 29, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243 "2005-11-29T18:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/21 "2005-11-30T16:38:16Z")
Do you think we are going to end up with a repeat of the last days of Viet Nam? Embassy surrounded, constant helicopter flights out, and then to make things worse, years later we’ll be subjected to a Miss Baghdad on Broadway? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/22 "2005-11-30T16:43:20Z")
> [@Inigo Montoya](#): > > Bush is giving a speech? People are still listening to that guy? Well, captive audiences, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/23 "2005-11-30T17:24:23Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > If any of you had been paying attention, you’d would note that troop levels and actions have been dropping anyway. No - the Pentagon increased troop levels in anticipation of the elections. > [@](#): > > There are about 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The Pentagon has not committed to any specific drawdown of U.S. forces next year beyond the announced plan to pull back 28,000 troops that were added this fall for extra security during the election. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10253079/page/2/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10253079/page/2/) ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/24 "2005-11-30T18:04:33Z")
Just finished reading the 38-page policy paper ([National Strategy for Victory in Iraq](http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/images/11/30/iraq.strategy.pdf)) that went along with this speech, and it’s more of the same weary pie-in-the-sky crap. It’s like one of those term papers you write for school where you have five pages of content for a 50-page paper. And not that this is important, but there’s a piece of fractured syntax in the thing that drives me nuts. It goes like this: “With resolve, victory will be achieved, although not by a date certain.” What the fuck? You could call it a typo, except the phrase actually appears twice. ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/25 "2005-11-30T18:20:33Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > If any of you had been paying attention, you’d would note that troop levels and actions have been dropping anyway. Not true, as others have already pointed out. > [@](#): > > Trained Iraqi units have been coming up to par and getting organized and cracking for some time now. There aren’t many companies yet which can fully do the job of an American one, but we’re working on that and they are, apparently, coming along nicely. There might be more “Iraqi units” now than at this time last year. The problem is that they are effectively religious- / ethnically-based militias. This makes conflict, up to the level of a civil war, more rather than less likely. From a summary of a Wall Street Journal article ([link](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/29/BL2005112900634.html) to the summary, [link](http://users1.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?a=t&d=wsj&sd=users1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB113323271579708774.html%3Fmod%3Dpolitics_first_element_hs) to the article, subscription required): > [@](#): > > President Bush, in an address at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Wednesday is expected to emphasize progress in training Iraqi troops. But the administration’s endorsement comes as Iraqi forces increasingly are operating as sectarian militias, targeting Sunnis on behalf of their Shiite political patrons and raising the possibility of all-out civil war." > > The Journal quotes Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies as saying: “It’s increasingly becoming a war of all against all, with no rules. . . . The Iraqi security forces themselves are becoming just another of the players, and if they owe allegiance to anything, it’s to their commanders or communities, and not remotely to the state itself.” ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/26 "2005-11-30T18:31:55Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > We will almost certainly retain several military bases in southern Iraq, however. Maybe some in Kurdlandia, too. I challenge you to find “Kurdlandia” on a map. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/27 "2005-11-30T22:10:00Z")
**Cisco** > [@](#): > > I took a night class last summer called “US Experience in Vietnam” and, despite admitting that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was almost certainly cooked, the professor basically hinged his entire thesis on how the hippies lost us the war. I’m just curious about the war record of that professor. Did he ever serve in the military? Was he of draft age during the Vietnam conflict? OR is he just a John Wayne armchair patriot summer soldier Texas National Guard kind of guy? As you can see, some of the folks from the Vietnam era (no I did not serve) are still hyper-sensitive to all the Monday morning quarterbacking from folks who were 1) two pounds overweight and “couldn’t” serve :rolleyes: 2) _Would_ have gone but they were only ten years old at the time :rolleyes: 3) “Had other priorities” :rolleyes: as well as a zillion other bullshit excuses for not going. When push comes to shove, and you just might have to put your _life_ on the line, it is difficult to find the likes of a Nathan Hale or a Pat Tilman. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/28 "2005-12-01T01:18:29Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > I challenge you to find “Kurdlandia” on a map. Give it a year or so before the top picture on [this page](http://www.hobotraveler.com/119money.shtml) becomes th e standard map of Kurdistan. The Kurds got the effective right to secede written into the constitution. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/29 "2005-12-01T01:58:34Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Give it a year or so before the top picture on [this page](http://www.hobotraveler.com/119money.shtml) becomes th e standard map of Kurdistan. The Kurds got the effective right to secede written into the constitution. I was referring to the fact that while there is a Kurdistan, it is not called Kurdlandia. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/30 "2005-12-23T22:52:05Z")
Rumsfeld has announced that two brigades will be pulled out of Iraq. Of course, these two brigades aren’t even _in_ Iraq at the moment–one is in Kuwait on standby and the other is in Kansas [cite](http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=33919) ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243/31 "2005-12-23T23:18:45Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Rumsfeld has announced that two brigades will be pulled out of Iraq. Of course, these two brigades aren’t even _in_ Iraq at the moment–one is in Kuwait on standby and the other is in Kansas > > [cite](http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=33919) Yeah I caught that as well. Pretty amusing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rumor-bush-to-announce-troop-withdrawls-wednesday-speech-at-annapolis/333243.md?page=1)