next year is only a few short months away

let's hope we don't lose any more of our service people (we will but we can wish........)

Retired general: Iraq invasion was 'strategic disaster'

The Lowell Sun

WASHINGTON -- The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in
United States history,” a retired Army general said yesterday, strengthening an
effort in Congress to force an American withdrawal beginning next year., Retired
Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran, said the invasion of Iraq
alienated America's Middle East allies, making it harder to prosecute a war
against terrorists.
The U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, he said, and
reposition its military forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border to capture
Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda cells.
“The invasion of Iraq I believe
will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” said Odom,
now a scholar with the Hudson Institute.
Homeward Bound, a bipartisan
resolution with 60 House co-sponsors, including Lowell Rep. Marty Meehan,
requests President Bush to announce plans for a draw-down by December, and begin
withdrawing troops by October 2006.
The measure has not been voted on, nor
has the House Republican leadership scheduled hearings. But supporters were
encouraged yesterday, pointing to growing support among moderate conservatives
and the public's rising dissatisfaction with the war.
Meehan, one of the
first to propose a tiered exit strategy in January, when few of his Democratic
colleagues dared wade into the controversial debate, pointed to “enormous
progress.” ................