Why can't we leave?

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - Troop withdrawal in Iraq - Brief article

As for Obama's comment that we can only withdraw slowly, I remind him and our readers that we got our troops out of Vietnam at the rate of 140,000 a year while a war was raging. Assuming the 30,000 surge troops are withdrawn before Bush leaves office, this means we could get everybody out of Iraq in one year.

John Edwards said we need enough troops to protect the embassy in Baghdad and the American civilians who will still be working in Iraq. Why? We took all of our people out of Vietnam, including all civilian workers and the entire embassy. Obama thinks we need to leave a small force to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. But how will al-Qaeda in Iraq survive without our presence to attract recruits for jihad against the great Satan...