Italy has announced today that it will start withdrawing its 3,000 troops from Iraq beginning in September. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday his country will begin a “progressive reduction” of troops.
I think this is a good choice by Italy to begin the process of handing Iraq back to the Iraqis.
Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said on March 8th during a news conference at the pentagon that “Today there are more than 140,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops and more than 90 operational combat battalions engaged across Iraq, both with coalition forces and, in some cases, independently.”
If this statement is true, why wouldn’t the Italians leave Iraq? It sounds like the US has the situation under control with the Iraqis trained to protect themselves. On top of that, they have implanted a whole new government to run the country! It only makes sense for Italy to leave the country. What a great success for the US to have stabilized Iraq to a point where there are 140,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops.
PS: There’s no sarcasm in this posting whatsoever 😉 I don’t know what their definition of “trained and equipped”, but I’d like to see it first hand. Maybe they meant to say “Potty trained and equipped with utensils”, they just accidentally removed a couple key words. Whatever keeps GW happy.
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Poor Jim.You just can’t stop on a poitive note.You can’t resist taking a shot at GW.Also,I find it entertaining that some of your readers blame the US for everything Canadians do wrong.ie;bankrupting an airline and leaving travelers stranded.Your readers just break me up every day.
From:One of your American friends.
Sorry about the spelling mistake (positive not poitive).I guess I just get too excited when I read your comments and forget how to spell.
Dear B. (My American Friend)
I would like to be able to stop on a positive note, but every time these reports from Iraq are questioned, they can’t be backed up. Some day the US will be able to say that the Iraqis are fully trained and able to defend their own country, but until then I might as well stir up some controversy 😉
It wouldn’t be very interesting without any controversy eh? 😉
-Jim
PS: I don’t think the people commenting were trying to blame the US for the bankrupt airline, I think they were implying that the Canadian Airline followed some of the precedents set by the Enrons and the Global Crossings, etc. Although I don’t think the owner of Jetsgo was stealing money from the company, it just follows some of the same principals, taking in all that money, then orchestrating a huge shutdown overnight and screwing everyone over.