Bush rejects calls for pullout from Iraq

This is from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - President Bush, just back from Iraq, dismissed calls for a U.S. withdrawal as election-year politics and refused to give a timetable or benchmark for success that would allow troops to come home.

"It's bad policy," Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference Wednesday, about six hours after he returned from Iraq. "I know it may sound good politically. It will endanger our country to pull out of Iraq before we accomplish the mission."

Excuse me Mr. President--what is our mission in Iraq? What specifically are the parameters that will show us we are succeeding--or failing--that mission? What are the specific goals of that mission? We hear a lot of talk about our mission in Iraq, but I have no idea what that mission is, or even specific, measurable parameters that show us if we are even succeeding in that mission? And if we're not succeeding, then what are the parameters that show us we are failing in this mission, and that we should pull out of Iraq? Continuing on with the Yahoo story:

Bush said he wanted to see a reduction in the deadly violence in Iraq but would not say how much it must drop before troops can begin to withdraw. He offered other ways of measuring progress in Iraq — an increase in oil production or more electricity delivered to cool sweltering homes or growing numbers of Iraqi military units able to handle the fight.

But again, he did not offer any specific targets to measure when Iraqis will be able to govern themselves. Instead, he declared that the government must be able to succeed and that leaving too early would "make the world a more dangerous place."

Not surprising there. We get more PR-style over policy substance--more when the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down! No specific targets measuring progress in Iraq. But if we leave Iraq, we'll make Iraq, and now the world, a more dangerous place. Terrorists have already taken up residence in Iraq--even with the U.S. occupation troops there! The country is already in a civil war. I'm starting to wonder if it is going to make Iraq even worst off, if we do pull out. The only worst-case scenario that I can think of is that the country will fracture into three distinct regions--Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, and Sunnis in between. And all three factions will certainly go to war with each other, and possibly will form into three nations in the end. That might not be a bad idea.

Because right now, American soldiers are sitting in a meat grinder for nothing.