Perhaps next year. . . .

Bush’s commander in Iraq, Rick Lynch backs up Commander Guy:

“If coalition soldiers were to leave, having fought hard for that terrain, having denied the enemy their sanctuaries, what’d happen is the enemy would come back,” said Lynch.

“He’d start building the bombs again, he’d start attacking the locals again and he’d start exporting that violence into Baghdad and we would take a giant step backward,” Lynch told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Iraq.

He said that recent gains resulted from the buildup of troops in Iraq and that he needs all the forces he has until Iraqis are able to step up and take over, perhaps some time next year.

We’ve been hearing about the Iraqis stepping up and taking over for over three years now.

We’ve trained Iraqi security forces and army units, but they are infiltrated with militias and prone to ethnic, regional, sectarian and tribal loyalties overriding any thin allegiance to the dysfunctional central government.

Bush ran his ‘04 campaign on the whole “as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down” shibboleth and all it got is was this “surge” three years later, three years during which we ostensibly were training Iraqi troops and security forces to stand up so we could stand down.

Perhaps next year. . . it’s a tired, old, and overused refrain when it comes to Iraq. The fact that the Joint Chiefs are saying one thing, and Commander Guy’s commanders in Iraq are saying another points to how politicized and divided command has become.