We have to drive our vehicles out and that leaves them wide open to attack. While very lethal, Abrams tanks are just very expensive, very large targets.

Do you pull out in large groups? That’s smart, you can mass your firepower.

Unfortunately, a lot of people who hate us (pretty much the whole country) wait for a narrowing in the road and block it by blowing up one vehicle. They they rain mortar fire down on everyone who is backed up.

Ok, so you evacuate in small groups. Now you have relatively little firepower with which to shoot back. Our air superiority is of little value in civilian areas unless we want to continue killing a lot of innocents.

Our soldiers understand this, you can bank on them being on edge.

It’s a logistical nightmare of immense proportions.

So, while acknowledging the risks, it’s time to leave. The elephant in the china shop has done what little it can to fix the situation, now it’s up to the people who work in the shop to finish the job as best they can. One of the lessons the US still needs to learn is that “it’s not about you”. Sometimes you just have to let other people take care of their own problems, and not interfere.

And, more to the point, sometimes you need to tend to your own affairs. This is one of those times.

Bullseye.

Thanks Ian.

Any surplus equipment could be sold to the Iraqis or brought over the Saudi or Kuwait border…or simply decommissioned and left in depots in the desert for later removal.

I agree that George Bush needs to be tried for war crimes. Sadly, I think we’ll never see it, unless he’s stupid enough to visit Holland or some such.

What about others in the administration who pushed us into this criminal occupation of Iraq?

Is the Neocon involvement in U.S. government which pushed us into Iraq all that different than the Likud and Zionists in Israel who pushed into the West Bank? Seems they only know one final solution.