Troops Out At Some Indeterminate Point In The Future

We may have caught an indicator of this when Bush said during the State of the Union address that troop drawdown in Iraq will be conditional, but now there are confirmed rumblings from the Defense Department indicating that a reduction in troops to pre-surge levels may not be happening any time soon.

From the Chicago Trib:

But although the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is being reduced over the next several months, the drawdown could be suspended this summer as Defense Department officials and top commanders gauge whether they can make do at a presurge posture.

Pentagon officials said Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, might recommend keeping the roughly 8,000 support troops sent as part of the surge to provide training and other logistical support to the fledgling Iraqi security forces that are expected to fill the void as U.S. forces step back.

The budget the Bush administration is preparing doesn't fund the war in a meaningful way beyond his presidency, and now the reduction in forces following the surge that the American people so clearly want has been delayed yet again by a lack of military and political progress. The next time anyone asks you about the success of imposed polities and contends that such an endeavor has any kind of effective resolution, point to this as evidence to the contrary.