As I had feared in my May 14th entry, the Pentagon and other military planners do not have a plan for a full withdrawal yet. In fact, the challenges ahead of them are huge. But they are working on the problem.
According to military logistics officials, it would take 10,000 flatbed trucks and one year to move out--and that's just to withdraw the twenty combat brigades currently deployed in Iraq. For a full pullout, it would take twenty months or more to get the troops and all equipment out of Iraq.
Congress's timetable is unrealistic. They are TOTALLY out of their minds!
This entire withdrawal debate needs to be re-cast with more realistic timetables. Vietnam withdrawal planning took two years to complete, and the draw down took place between 1969-1973.
If the Pentagon needs to take two years to plan it out, that puts the timetable to begin withdrawing somewhere around 2009 or 2010. And then a minimum of twenty months to get all troops and equipment out, which puts the complete withdrawal date anywhere from late 2012 to somewhere around 2015.
Congress must not screw this up! They're going to get a lot of people killed if they insist on this cockamamie plan to complete the withdrawal by April 2008. This is a force of 200,000 people with many thousands of tons of equipment, not a Boy Scout troop packing up to go home after a camp-out.
Congress needs to get it's head out of the sand and get with the program.
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