SIRS of course we will be drawing down.
Armies drawn down as the mission draws closer to completion.
Basically we have won. The surge worked.
General Petraeus, the guy Democrats last year were
insinuating was a liar and called "
General BeTrayUs" is a hero.
Obviously there is still much work to be done, but we wont need 120K troops anymore.
In Iraq on July 4th, 1,215 U.S. servicemen and women re-enlisted in
the largest re-enlistment ceremony ever.
The Iraqi army we trained and said would be ready is getting stronger.
The Iraqi army is starting to take the lead in many operations.
Most of Iraq's provinces are now under the remit of an Iraqi-led command centre.
We just shipped 550 tons of Yellowcake nuclear bomb material out of Iraq.
Iraq's electricity production jumped more than 10 percent in roughly the first six months of 2008.
Other reconconstruction efforts will continue and increase as Iraq becomes more peaceful.
The United Arab Emirates just announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion
of debt owed by Baghdad -- an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state.
The first signs of the end of Iraqi isolation within the Arab world. The Emirates are planning
to send a new ambassador to Baghdad, a decision aimed at mitigating Iraqi diplomatic isolation
on the part of the Arab world.
Other positive signs are coming from the Arab community, including the upcoming visits
of King Abdullah of Jordan (the first Arab head of state to set foot again in Iraq after
the beginning of the war, in March of 2003) and of Turkish prime minister Erdogan.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have also been promising for some time to reestablish their
diplomatic representation.
No matter who was President we would be withdrawing a great number of troops over the next 4 years.
The difference is now we will be withdrawing as a winner!
Whoever the next President is, he will be lucky that President Bush after doing
most of the dirty work will be handing off a democratic Iraq well on the way to reaching it's potential.
