Friday, May 19, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.
Hope flared last summer and fall, and even earlier this year, that a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq might be on the horizon.
Newsweek magazine reported in August that the Pentagon had developed a "detailed plan" calling for a reduction to about 80,000 troops by mid-2006, and to between 40,000 and 60,000 by year's end.
In November Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a military expert and a Marine veteran who earned two Purple Heart medals in Vietnam, sparked congressional debate when he called for withdrawing all troops from Iraq within six months.
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, was reported in November to have submitted a plan to the Pentagon to begin withdrawing troops by early 2006. And just last month CNN, quoting "senior military officials," reported tentative plans by Casey to withdraw 30,000 troops by December.
Such reports increased the national anticipation that some level of troop withdrawal - signaling U.S. success - would soon get under way.
All along, however, President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to confirm any of the reports. They equated calls for the gradual reduction of forces to setting a "timetable" for withdrawal, which they said would hand insurgency leaders in Iraq a propaganda tool.
While that argument was persuasive, hope nevertheless remained that the Bush administration's frequent pronouncements of progress in Iraq were genuine, that it was truly succeeding in training Iraqis to defend their own country so that our troops could begin coming home.
Unfortunately, that hope is all but dashed.
Appearing before a Senate defense subcommittee Wednesday, Rumsfeld was asked about troop withdrawals this year. The Washington Post reported that he said he remains hopeful, but that he added, "I can't promise it."
Rumsfeld then reverted to his standard mantra, that "turning Iraq over to the extremists would be a terrible thing for that part of the world ..."
After more than three years of a U.S.-led war, Rumsfeld as much as admitted that extremists still reign in Iraq and that there is no telling when the bloodshed will subside and U.S. troops can begin gradually withdrawing. Last year there was hope. This year there is reality.
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