"I challenge you to press the administration's witnesses this week to explain this absurdity. Ask them to name a single historical case where power has been aggregated successfully from local strong men to a central government except through bloody violence leading to a single winner, most often a dictator. That is the history of feudal Europe's transformation to the age of absolute monarchy. It is the story of the American colonization of the west and our Civil War. It took England 800 years to subdue clan rule on what is now the English-Scottish border. And it is the source of violence in Bosnia and Kosovo. --
 
"How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense.
 
"To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. -- How long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.
 
"The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region.
 
"The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran's policy toward Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.
 
"No quick reconciliation between the US and Iran is likely, but US steps to make Iran feel more secure make it far more conceivable than a policy calculated to increase its insecurity. The president's policy has reinforced Iran's determination to acquire nuclear weapons, the very thing he purports to be trying to prevent.
"Withdrawal from Iraq does not mean withdrawal from the region. It must include a realignment and reassertion of US forces and diplomacy that give us a better chance to achieve our aim.
 
"A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely.
"--First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe, effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs, and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.
 
"Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the "domino theory" in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it. The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.
 
"Third, nay Sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran's regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies' interest.
 
"I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq," concluded Gen Odom
 
General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker show
 
After the Congress hearings of Gen General Petraeus ,Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad and others ,even the New York Times, one of the cheer leaders for the 2003 invasion was forced to bemoan that ' President Bush --told his Iraq war commander, Gen. David Petraeus, that "he'll have all the time he needs." We know what that means. It means that the general, like the Iraqi government, should feel no pressure to figure a way out of this disastrous war. It means that even after 20,000 troops come home there will be nearly 140,000 American troops still fighting there - with no plan for further withdrawals and no plan for leading them to victory."

"It means, as we've always suspected, that Mr. Bush's only real strategy for Iraq has been to hand the mess off to his successor. Mr. Bush gave himself all the time he needs to walk away from one of the biggest strategic failures in American history. --  General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, did not try to hide any of that in their Stay-the-Course 2008 Tour. There were the obligatory claims of military and political progress, but with a lot less specificity than during Stay-the-Course 2007. Mr. Crocker did not even bother to bring charts assessing Iraqi performance on political benchmarks. General Petraeus's charts showed that American troop numbers would come down to around 140,000 this summer - but showed nothing beyond that."
 
"When members of Congress pressed him to explain what would have to change on the ground for him to agree to further withdrawals, the general did not have an answer. He certainly is not getting any pressure from the White House to come up with one. As they say in the military, Mr. Bush is a short-timer, so why should he worry?"--
 
"Earlier this month, The Times reported that repeated battlefield tours have so debilitated American troops that Army leaders fear for their mental health. Last week, Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, warned Congress that the demand for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan "exceeds the sustainable supply."--
"The faltering American economy also cannot afford this never-ending war. Mr. Bush's description of his latest emergency spending request as a "reasonable $108 billion" proves just how out of touch he is with fiscal reality. His attempt to justify the overall $600 billion cost so far by comparing his war to the cold war and the need to stop "Soviet expansion" shows that he is even more out of touch with strategic reality.
 
" We believe that the fight against Al Qaida is the central battle for this generation, but Mr. Bush's claim that Iraq is the main front is wrong. That is Afghanistan, and the United States is in real danger of losing because Mr. Bush's failed adventure in Iraq is eating up the Pentagon's resources and attention.