This AP article seems to confirm the wishful thinking reflected in the recently leaked British memos concerning force level in Iraq, and that there are plans to withdraw substantial forces prior to the '06 elections. The question is: who's pushing this?
Note this bizarre passage from the article:
The Pentagon is eager to pull some of its 135,000 troops out of Iraq in 2006, partly because the counterinsurgency is stretching the Army and Marine Corps perilously thin as casualties mount...
Um, what? The troops are "stretched periously thin" so the solution is to reduce troop strength?? Now, if they were talking about redeploying troops from "pacified" areas to the areas where the insurgency is strongest, that might make sense from a military perspective. But to cut the force level in half without a reduction in violence would be a purely political move, to give cover to Republicans approaching what looks like a very difficult '06 campaign environment.
Who else thinks the "Pentagon" isn't really the source of these stories? Regardless of how you feel about the current situation, this thinking seems to be the worst kind of political cravenness, and the Republicans seem to be preparing to implement everything ("negotiating with the terrorists", "timetables") that they accused Democrats of wanting to do.