President Bush said Thursday night conditions on the ground in Iraq have improved sufficiently to start bringing some U.S. troops home, and urged Americans divided over the war to "come together."In other words, for those who haven't been paying much attention, he's essentially saying that he's just going to return us to the numbers we had in there before the "surge". In fact, he may not even reduce troop numbers that much.
In a televised speech to the nation, Bush said he would reduce U.S. force strength by 5,700 troops by Christmas and, by next July, reduce the number of combat brigades from 20 to 15 -- a decrease of roughly 21,500 troops overall.
As for this flap about "conditions on the ground in Iraq have improved sufficiently", where the hell is he getting that? The GAO concluded that violence is still high and "The average number of daily attacks against civilians remained about the same over the last six months." That doesn't sound like "improved conditions" to me. That sounds more like the same old bullshit.
