Contributed by: filbert Monday, August 22 2005 @ 08:18 AM CST
Army general says they’ve planned through 2009[*1] .
Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyondPresident Bush’s term in office, which ends in January 2009.
The fairly consistent media spin on this is that the military expects (not “plans,” but “expects”) to be in Iraq in large numbers in 2009. This is, I think, not likely. I think there will be some permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq, but nothing like, say, Germany or Japan.