Troop Levels in Iraq are Unsustainable

The Center for American Progress suggests a need to reduce American troops in Iraq by 80,000 in 2006 (thgat would leave 50,000-80,000 troops there, depending on what their baseline is) in order to preserve the all-volunteer army.

James Dobbins of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the nonprofit RAND Corp seems to be suggesting that it is a good idea, but Bush should not propose it directly.

"While the Bush administration is unlikely to announce a timetable for troop reductions, the CAP plan is probably similar to what Bush policymakers have in mind anyway, according to Dobbins, of RAND."

Ahmad Chalabi seems to be encouraging a U.S. troop reduction as well. I would wager he either thinks that such a move would require the U.S. to look to him for assistacne (and thus increase his political power), or he thinks that it is going to happen and wants to score points with Iraqis by making it look like he is the one who managed to convince the U.S. to give Iraqis more independence.

Personally, I am skeptical of any claims that the U.S. will be able to reduce troop levels anytime soon without significant damage to U.S. plans regarding Iraq, and without Iraq falling into a civil war (but this is going to happen sooner or later, so we might as well let it happen now; it will probably be more severe laer). There have been constant predictions that we will be able to reduce our troop levels once we turn the next corner, and yet last month our troop levels in Iraq reached the highest point they have been at since this war started.

I think that in the coming months, the U.S. will have to make some pretty tough choices. We may well be forced to reduc troop levels, but I don't think we can do so painlessly. As I have said several times, I am afraid that if we reduce troop levelsthe coalition will have to resort to significantly more brutality in order to put down the insurgency with the reduced numbers.

That is all.