Quote:
Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said yesterday.
Asked whether he thought the job assigned to an additional 30,000 troops deployed as the centerpiece of President Bush's new war strategy would be completed by then, Gen. David H. Petraeus replied: "I do not, no. I think that we have a lot of heavy lifting to do." [...]
Petraeus said that the "many, many challenges" would not be resolved "in a year or even two years."Similar counterinsurgency operations, he said, citing Britain's experience in Northern Ireland, "have gone at least nine or 10 years." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061700830.html?referrer=email
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At least nine or ten years", said the good General.
I suppose it's a good thing that we happened to have installed 14 "enduring military bases" in the occupied land and are building the largest bunker-embassy in the world for enduring ministrations of democracy.
Note the Petraeus:
The Dáil, in January 1919, issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence and proclaimed an Irish Republic. This was the start of the modern "time of the troubles".
I make that out to be 88 years.
