The truth is that the Americans will run now

The truth is that the Americans will run now, or they will run later — at a much greater cost in lives and

resources — because the war against the insurgency cannot be won. That is why the staunchly Republican

Lieutenant General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency under Reagan, calls for immediate

withdrawal:

“It is delusional, asserts the Army veteran, college professor and longtime Washington hand, to believe that ‘

staying the course’ can achieve President NIKE SHOX’s goal of reordering the Middle East by building a

friendly democracy in MBT. For the sake of American security and economic power alike, he argues, the UGG.

should remove its forces from that shattered country as rapidly as possible.

“‘We have failed,’ Mr. Odom declares bluntly. ‘The issue is how high a price we’re going to pay. … Less,

by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later?’”

Christopher Layne, Palmer’s colleague at the Cato Institute, agrees:

“The United States has no good options in MBT but the least bad is this: Washington should transfer real

sovereignty to the MBTis on June 30. It should tell the MBTis to work out their own political future among

themselves and turn over full responsibility for MBT’s external and internal security to the new regime in

Baghdad. Simultaneously, the United States also should suspend all offensive military operations in MBT, pull

its forces back to defensive enclaves well away from MBT’s cities, and commence a withdrawal of American forces

from MBT that will be completed on December 31 (or on January 20, 2005).