Word: trooped
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...Brown delivered his promised announcement on Iraqi troop levels on Oct. 8, the day MPs finally returned to work after a long recess. The green benches of the Commons, often sparsely populated, were crammed, with well-upholstered MPs spilling into each others laps and those too slow to claim their seats forced to stand to listen to Brown's plans. "Let me affirm," Brown told them, "as I told [Iraqi] Prime Minister Maliki last week, and as I have agreed with President Bush and our other allies, we will meet our obligations, honor our commitments and discharge our duties...
...There are currently about 5,000 U.K. troops in Iraq. Brown's statement envisages this will fall to 4,500 by December and to 4,000 by early in the new year, as the British military moves into what he described as a two-stage overwatch process. During the first stage, U.K. forces are expected to retain responsibility for training, securing supply routes and helping to patrol the Iran-Iraq border, while 500 support and logistics personnel will operate from a neighboring country. A further draw down in the spring should see troop levels cut to 2,500 and signal...
...Defcon 3: Attack with faint praise. The opponent is named, but the shiv is delivered with a smile. John Edwards, perhaps true to his Southern roots, is an expert at delivering this kind of attack. Witness Edwards' comments in last week's presidential debate on troop withdrawals from Iraq: "I don't have any doubt that Senator Clinton wants to take a responsible course. There is a difference, however, in how we would go about this." He then proceeded to argue that Clinton would actually extend the war in Iraq, not end it. Or take Senator Joe Biden's comments...
...Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it - hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey. As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps's ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft. Four times he failed. Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. "Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list," he told a Senate committee in 1989. "It came out at the bottom...
...President's attempt to disguise the strain on the military as a "victory" for his troop surge is disingenuous politicking at its worst. But it's symptomatic of a debate in Washington that puts high-flown rhetoric and do-good intentions like "supporting the troops" ahead of a serious discussion of what America still can and should do in Iraq...