Word: iraq
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...Already, the drawdown of troops is accelerating. The Pentagon announced Wednesday that a brigade of the 101st Airborne division will rotate out of Iraq before Christmas, as much as two months ahead of schedule, bringing the total number of combat brigades in Iraq down to 14 from its late 2007 peak of 20. But there is a limit to how quickly U.S. soldiers can depart the country while maintaining the current level of security. Although security has improved dramatically in many neighborhoods in Baghdad over the past year, the ability of the Iraqi security forces to act independently and effectively...
...interview with TIME, Commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno said the numbers of U.S. troops can and will go down. "We don't have to do it with 150,000; we can do it with less," Odierno told TIME, without specifically addressing Obama's campaign pledge. But the drawdown will have to be done "slowly, in a deliberate way, so we don't give back the gains...
...Iraqi government, for its part, has asked that all U.S. troops be pulled out of Iraqi cities by June 2009 and out of Iraq by 2012. That remains part of the Status of Forces draft agreement currently being renegotiated between Washington and Baghdad, to create a legal framework for the operation of U.S. troops in Iraq when their current mandate expires on January 1. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari, says he is confident that the Obama administration will not pull U.S. troops out of Iraq too quickly. Obama has agreed to "consult with the Iraqi government...
...Obama received his first on-the-ground briefing in Iraq on the morning of July 21 at a military base adjacent to the Basra airport. During the briefing, said a senior U.S. military official, then-Senator Obama seemed "receptive" and "asked good questions." The hope among senior officers in Iraq is that President-elect Obama will make good on another promise he's made over an over again from the stump: "We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting...
...pictures of Iraq's revival