Bush Administration to Stop Troop Withdrawals From Iraq
“We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible” from General Petrayus in Congressional Testimony
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq told Congress on Tuesday he plans to stop U.S. troop withdrawals in July due to fragile security gains in a war update that drew scrutiny from U.S. presidential candidates.
A new outbreak in violence — including the deaths of 11 American service personnel in the past 48 hours — has thrust Iraq back among the top concerns of war-weary American voters ahead of the November election.
Gen. David Petraeus offered a cautious assessment of Iraq a year after thousands more U.S. troops were poured into the country, telling two Senate committees there has been an improvement in security in parts of Iraq but that the situation remains unsatisfactory.
“We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He said an Iraqi operation earlier this month to tackle Shi’ite militias in the southern city of Basra, which President George W. Bush had called a “defining moment” for Iraq, was a disappointment and not adequately planned or prepared.
To avoid jeopardizing the gains of the past year, Petraeus said he had recommended a 45-day halt in July to a series of troop withdrawals. After that pause, he would assess conditions on the ground to determine whether security is sufficient to bring more troops home. Click here to read more in Yahoo News.