Many congressional [tag]Democrats[\/tag] have backed a plan for Iraq that calls for significant troop withdrawals by the end of the year. Gen. George W. [tag]Casey[\/tag], the top American commander in Iraq, has a plan that calls for the same thing.<\/p>\n
Today, [tag]White House[\/tag] Press Secretary [tag]Tony Snow[\/tag] was asked to explain<\/a> why the Dems’ plan was reckless and irresponsible, while Casey’s plan is not.<\/p>\n “Well, actually, he has one, and it — you know, again, this is not, I believe the way, at least it was reported, is you’ve got two brigades by the end of the year, September being short of the end of the year. But I may be misreading it. In any event, you’ve got to keep in mind that this is not a statement of policy. Again, Gen. Casey keeps in mind a number of scenarios. You’re talking about scenarios here … And so I would caution very strongly against everybody thinking, well, they’re going to pull two brigades out. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. That really does depend upon a whole series of things that we cannot, at this juncture, predict. But Gen. Casey — again, I would characterize this more in terms of scenario building, and we’ll see how it proceeds.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That clears things up nicely, doesn’t it? (Update<\/em>: this, apparently, wasn’t the dumbest<\/a> thing Snow said today.)<\/p>\n In the broader context, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the landscape that Tony Snow can’t quite bring himself to describe. Congressional Dems want a timed withdrawal; Gen. Casey wants something similar<\/a>, and perhaps most importantly, Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has called for a withdrawal timetable for coalition forces from Iraq. As Newsweek reported<\/a> over the weekend, “Mahmoud Othman, a National Assembly member who is close to President Talabani, said that no one disagrees with the concept of a broad, conditions-based timetable.”<\/p>\n