"A residual force would be left behind, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 troops."

Wonderful. That won't cost us a penny, I'm certain.

Yeah, this silly war should have never happened. Start listening to Ron Paul and the truth will be made abundantly clear before mayhem is embarked upon.

Bring them all all all home!!!! Let someone else fight the so called (war on terror) a war that will never end!!! We finally have a president, for 8 years we had none he was the president of Iraq or thought he was he was more caring about what went on there than here!!!!

Question, how many of these returning soldiers will have jobs to come back to when they return stateside? Or will they just get sent over to Afghanistan?

Four large military complexes, one the size of the Vatican. 50,000 troops to protect supply lines, the "vital interests" that come out of Iraq to fuel our economy. Redeployment of existing forces to Afghanistan and other occupied territories.

This is a pro-war policy that has been disguised as anti-war. Shame on the democrats.

We truly have a one party political system.

How many more innocent people must die for Obama's (formerly Bush's) illegal Wars against Muslims!?

We will find out soon whoes USA this is, the Pentagon or the Elites, they are convinced that it's not the People.

Damn, Americans are stupid...

I think “socialistic” Barack Obama’s pittance tax cuts that we are getting starting april fools day are coming out of payroll taxes like social security not income tax.
PAY ATTENTION!

Why do Demi-Dems keep talking about those lost in Iraq as if they are the worst military losses in history ((don’t get me wrong ~ 5 thousand is bad but nothing like other wars that Dems started or supported – Vietnam – 56,000 == == WW II – 408,000 US Troops; 20+ ‘Million’ world wide when you consider disease and all the other complicating factors of that war – should we have “Preempted” Hitler !!! ).

So why when Libs talk do they make ~ 5 thousand sound like 50 thousand as they ‘Propagandize’ about Iraq.

If we pull out and have to go back in (as Obama has already said we might – which the liberal media has avoided repeating as best they could --- Propagandize what they like & Sweeping the rest ‘under the rug’) then unfortunately it may be more like 50 thousand if we have to land troops D-Day style (if we pull out and the area explodes this is very possible – 80% chance) as opposed to already being there. If we don’t go back in there may be mass genocide, and if the ‘Persian Gulf Oil’ stops flowing (even if you don’t care about US oil, all those other nation’s oil will matter too) you will see a Depression to make the present situation look ‘Child’s Play’. What is the likelihood all those Iraqi factions are just going to kiss and make up, and when they don’t it will pull in Iran, Saudi Arabia, possibly Turkey and possibly several others.

Lets hope (for everyone’s sake) that Obama knows what he is doing here. I fear the ‘Inexperience Question’ may be very telling on this one.

Do you begin to get it yet ‘children’.

50,000 troop is considered a "residual force"?

what kind of orwellean newspeak is that!

call it what it is - a permanent base and endless occupation and war. Obama isn't for peace or for bringing our troops home - this is just more endless war and expansion of the conflict to Afghanistan and Pakistan...

what a joke. LBJ and Vietnam all over again.

Pres. Obama pledged to "withdraw" from Iraq not "drawdown" as this article says...this is where the media makes me sick...they are covering for him...it continually reminds me of the book "Animal Farm" where they keep diluting things by changing the words over time. Next thing you know they will change "drawdown" to "stabilize" or some other such crap. I can't stand it. The really sad thing is the administration isn't even doing their own contorting of the truth, they have people outside the government that do it for them. Useful Idiots.

Come on... over a year?? and 50,000 left behind to continue suffering, isn't that about a third of present? And the bases for them, don't tell me they are never going to be closed are they? So wouldn't that be about the time to roll out the mission accomplished banner.

So a fake war, poorly planned and executed takes a lot longer with lots of US casualties and many more innocent Iraqi deaths plus millions in exile and millions more refugees in their own country. All so we could have bases moved from Saudi Arabia I suppose at tremendous cost monetarily, morally, in soldiers, in innocent civilians, in an entire society's infrastructure?

And it won't really stop because it is an occupation that will have a continual resistance and soldiers always in danger on or off base at vast expense just at the time our own country is hemorraging valuation at about 50%. This is where we are at, just adding more international immorality on top of the corporate immorality that is dragging our entire country into the gutter??? Not very promising...

I wish all our troops were coming home this August, my biggest concern is that more of our soldiers will be at risk for their safety the longer they are in Iraq. And, as far as sending more troops to Afghanistan.....I wish we would get all our armed forces back in our country. We need to restructure and build up our defenses here to protect our United States. Afghanistan and Iraq will never be stable, our soldiers are killed and maimed in these countries. When will we start taking care of our own land??? With threats from Iran and North Korea, we definitely need to shore up our defenses. The one million dollars poured into helping Iraq is one of the big reasons we are in such a terrible economic condition. We have always been known for helping other countries, very few return the help and concern, even when we've had catastrophes occur. We need to stand up and bring this country of ours back to a debt free, (China owns us now), independent, and productive country that we were once, not so long ago.

When President Obama was running for office, he was either knowingly deceiving the public about ending the Irag war in in 16 months, so that he could get elected, or he was completely naive to the reality of how long it would actually take for things to end. And yet, there is no guarantee that he'll meet his August 31st, 2010 deadline.

"How many more innocent people must die for Obama's (formerly Bush's) illegal Wars against Muslims!?"

And how many more innocent Americans must be killed in attacks by Muslim terrorists before people like you get it? How much farther along does Iran have to get in their nuke program compare to Saddam's? Will a mushroom cloud over a city somewhere make you all righteous and demand something be done and scream that something should have been done to prevent this?

Or, is there simply no such thing as innocent Americans in your view?