Withdrawal Symptoms

Some of the planets seem to be lining up to indicate a possible American withdrawal from Iraq. Via Kevin Drum and Reuters Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, the conservative but outspoken Vietnam vet weighs in:
"We are seen as occupiers, we are targets. We have got to get out. I don't think we can sustain our current policy, nor do I think we should," he said at one stop.
And also:
The expectations that the president and his administration presented to the American people 2 1/2 years ago is not what the reality is today.
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, in this press release.
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today, at a local Listening Session in Marquette, Wisconsin, proposed a target timeframe for the completion of the military mission in Iraq and suggested December 31, 2006 as the target date for the completion of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
Also in his press release is
The former chief of Australia's armed forces, General Peter Cosgrove, recently argued that the foreign troop presence was fueling terrorist activity in Iraq, and called for foreign troops to be out of Iraq by the end of 2006.
One more data point, to define this up to quadratic terms comes from (I involuntarily raise crossed pencils as I type the name) Chris Matthews. I followed Kevin's link to Atrios, and picked up this quote

MATTHEWS: Let me go, Paul, before you start. What I keep doing here is asking people on and off camera who come on this program, high-ranking officers, enlisted, former officers. I get sometimes, not all the time, two different versions, the version they give me on the air and the version they give me the minute when we‘re off the air.

The version they give me when we‘re on the air is gung-ho, we‘re doing the right thing, everything is moving along. The version they give me off the air is, Rumsfeld is crazy. There aren‘t enough troops over there. We‘re not taking this seriously enough, or, we shouldn‘t be there, sometimes.

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