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Letter: Not leaving Iraq anytime soon

Monday, Jan. 2, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.

If you think that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's announcement that the administration was reducing our forces in Iraq by 7,000 troops means that there will actually be a reduction in troops there, think again.

For most of this past year our troop strength was 150,000, then they added another 10,000 for the recent Iraqi elections. So withdrawing 7,000 means we have a net gain of 3,000 from earlier this past year.

Add to this that in a recent interview former Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that we would have to have troops there for at least five more years. I'm not even going to imagine how many will be needed if a civil war breaks out there, a real possibility.

So then Dick Cheney, who as secretary of defense in 1991 predicted that removing Saddam Hussein would have us in a quagmire, was right. President Bush has put us over a barrel, with no way to retreat.

Richard J. Mundy Las Vegas

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