Rational Grounds

Oh yeah:

• August 25, 2003 "AFTER THE WAR: SECURITY; U.S. TO SEND IRAQIS TO SITE IN HUNGARY FOR POLICE COURSE" "...growing sense of urgency among American officials that chaotic security situation in some parts of country could be more effectively dealt with by Iraqis."
• October 30, 2003 "BUSH IN A HURRY TO TRAIN IRAQIS IN SECURITY DUTY" "Pentagon is developing plan to give few weeks of training to thousands of Iraqis who are now acting as security guards, and then put them on front lines as militiamen"
• November 7, 2003 "Pentagon to rotate troops, reduce strength" "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced yesterday a long-term plan for rotating tens of thousands of fresh troops into Iraq, but he said the overall number of Americans will decline and not increase as Iraqis do more of the fighting."
• June 9, 2004 "The Road Map for A Sovereign Iraq" "Over the next few months, our aim is to prepare Iraqi security forces to assume greater responsibilities from coalition forces--allowing Iraqis to take local control of the cities, even as coalition forces move into a supporting role and provide forces only as needed."
• June 21, 2004 "U.S. Forces Plan Lower Profile" "U.S. commanders say they intend to reduce combat operations, concentrate on training and assisting Iraqi forces..."
• December 7, 2004 "Commander Sees Shift In Role of U.S. Troops" "U.S. forces in Iraq could start to be reshaped as early as next year to reduce the number of combat troops and concentrate on the development of Iraqi security forces."
• January 23, 2005 "U.S. Plans New Tack After Iraq Elections" "The broad goal is to let Iraqis assume increasing responsibility for the stabilization of Iraq and to diminish the American face on the campaign against the insurgents, according to U.S. and allied officials."
• April 11, 2005 "US Commanders See Possible Cut in Troops in Iraq" "Two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the American-led military campaign in Iraq is making enough progress in fighting insurgents and training Iraqi security forces to allow the Pentagon to plan for significant troop reductions by early next year, senior commanders and Pentagon officials say."
• May 7, 2005 "U.S. leans more on Iraq troops to fight insurgents" "U.S. forces in the province, like elsewhere in Iraq, are trying to steadily shift more of the burden of fighting insurgents to Iraqi forces."

Once again from Sunday's WaPost article:

The disconnect between Rose Garden optimism and Baghdad pessimism, according to government officials and independent analysts, stems not only from Bush's focus on tentative signs of long-term progress but also from the shrinking range of policy options available to him if he is wrong. Having set out on a course of trying to stand up a new constitutional, elected government with the security firepower to defend itself, Bush finds himself locked into a strategy that, even if it proves successful, foreshadows many more deadly months to come first, analysts said.

Military commanders in Iraq privately told a visiting congressional delegation last week that the United States is at least two years away from adequately training a viable Iraqi military but that it is no longer reasonable to consider augmenting U.S. troops already strained by the two-year operation, said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). "The idea that the insurgents are on the run and we are about to turn the corner, I did not hear that from anybody," Biden said in an interview.