The Way out of Iraq

There just is not any easy way out. The Bush-Cheney-Condi-Rummy quartet made such a mess from the beginning. My old mentor , Frank Pace, used to say "good ideas are a dime a dozen; execution is the tough part'. Of course this was not ever a good idea because the objective was too grandiose and there were no existing institutions on which to build once we got Saddam out of the way. The current thought in Washington is put more troops in and I was horrified to see that the Senate Democratic leader seemed to think that was okay IF we could get all the troops out by the end of 2007. The President is desperate to save his own skin in a final fling at "success". Remember toward the end in Viet Nam someone asked the old Senator from Vermont ( I think) ,Senator Austin: "How we get out?" That is simple , he said, by sea....Here we can't even do that. But we need courage to decide to get out and the quartet doesn't have it. Churchill said: Courage is the great quality ; it ensures all the others. Maybe Gates has it.