The key phrase here is "combat troops." Clinton, Obama and Edwards are all in favor of withdrawing combat troops, but they support other military missions, from training Iraqi forces to serving as a "quick strike force" to go after Al Qaeda operatives to protecting the borders from infiltration by insurgents and jihadists. It is hard to see how these missions could be carried out without an ongoing commitment of tens of thousands of troops -- a reduction and redeployment, not a "withdrawal."
When Kerry in 1971 begged for the troops to come home two commanders in chief had already begun a lessening of their numbers. President Johnson in 1968 refused requests from commanders to increase the military commitment in Vietnam by hundreds of thousands of troops, and the reduction in forces began in 1969.
American air power was used to help sustain South Vietnam's struggling government, but by the time of the famous photograph of Americans being lifted off a roof in Saigon in 1975, few American combat forces were left in Vietnam.
That image is what shapes US Iraq policy, and how it is stated, today. Obama has to state his position accurately and his phrase "we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in" seems appropriate and indicates he is as eager as anyone to get our troops of Iraq.
Winston is an ex-Social Worker, burnt out by too much indifference regading our weak and weary who had too little interest in politics until the illegal Iraq War started.
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