I do not think we should pull out. I am not sure if going in was right but at this point here we are and Bush needs billions more to finance it. This will be ongoing. Are these billions the best use of our military and $. Is there a more effective way to halt terrorism? Are we depleting our army and money? I am beginning to think we may be more distracted than focused.

I think the amount of money being spent gets hyped a lot. It's true we'll have spent a ton of money on both wars together - but nowhere near the figures you see in the media. Last I saw was 300 billion or so - but that number includes things we'd pay for anyway, like troop salaries. That's just playing a numbers game - if we hadn't gone to war, we'd be paying them salaries anyway to stay at home. By the same token, they don't count savings such as not having to enforce no fly zones. My hope is that we can pull out most of our troops from Iraq within a year or two - the key is not to do it suddenly. What we're doing now is the right approach - give the Iraqis control over more and more zones, and in the end keep a small force there like we did in Afghanistan to hunt down terrorists. Then it can be their country and they can bear the expenses.

When pulling troops how will the final trickle fall out. I mean if we leave that final 5000 troops I feel like they would be sitting ducks

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BLIND FAITH IN BAD LEADERSHIP IS NOT PATRIOTISM

ididno... spoken like a true right brainer, "feel". I don't think you think.

As for the last 5,000 (or whatever number they leave), it would be something similar to what is happening now in Afghanistan. We don't have many troops there, but they're mainly special-forces types. They aren't doing the same stuff that our troops are doing in Iraq now - no escort missions, no trying to control territory. They mainly do search and destroy stuff - the intelligence and CIA guys and the Afghanis find targets, and they go out and hit them. It's actually much safer for the troops than right now because most of the time they're on base, and the terrorists won't attack that directly. They're also the elite guys, so there are many, many fewer casualties when they do a mission. Part of the reason we have high casualties now is because we have a lot of National Guard reserves in there, regular grunts, etc. - they're good people, but they aren't Green Berets.

Thanks GOP guy.

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BLIND FAITH IN BAD LEADERSHIP IS NOT PATRIOTISM

good point about when we get down to the final number....remember Viet Nam when our troops were being chased to the helcoptors when it was the last 1000 or so