Bush to speak on progress in Iraq, expected to call for a "freeze" in troop withdrawals

President Bush is set to speak later in the day with regards to the current situation in Iraq. According to White House Officials, he is set to give "his decisions and recommendations" regrading the middle east. It is expected that he will call for a pause in troop withdrawal, after firm suggestion by high ranking ground forces. Before the House of Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Gen Petraeus claimed that by putting a halt on troop withdrawals, we would allow ourselves to have a period of "reassessment" in Iraq. Although Bush may call for this, Gen Patraeus stated that it is highly unlikely that he will call for more troops in Iraq even if the situation worsened. Petraeus told the house that a plan was in place to withdraw someone around 20,000 troops by July, but after that, he called for a 45 day neutral period of reassessment. He also said that the progress of Iraqi forces themselves was very mixed, stating that with the recent failed attempt by Iraqi forces to overtake militants in Basra, we can see that there is still a lot of work to do. Ike Skeleton, who is the top democrat on the committee, claims the US forces are far too overstretched. He pointed to the threat that the next attack on the US might come from Afghanistan, and that our forces and interests should be more focused towards that situation. He also criticized the Iraqi forces for lack of funding on their own behalf. He asked why there so was little funding for their efforts while they were profiting off oil revenue. My opinion on the matter, while it counts for nothing, is quite strong. Why are we wasting, yes wasting trillions of dollars over seas on a war that is going nowhere? Aside from getting too far into that, we can all almost agree that it is time too pull troops out, and at a rapid pace. Young kids my age are going over there and being killed by IED's and other unecessary things they cant even see. We are at a point in time where we have been speinding millions in setting up the infilstructure of Iraq and trainging its military to handle there own issues. It is now time to pass the torch. We much pull out and let Iraq fend for themselves. While it does sound slightly harsh, we are loosing millions of dollars and thousands of lives over this war. As a nation, our economy is in a recession due our over seas funding, and millions of people are loosing jobs and home. The dollar is down compared to the world market and it is time we pull out and focus on our own country. We need to get all the troops out of Iraq and back home where they are safe. Once we stop funding this stupid war, our economy will be back to normal and we will be at rest as far as war times. Agreed, we must focus our efforts to fend off terrorism in this country, but Iraq is not the place. Even if an argument was made that Iraq harbored terrorists, US forces clearly have torn the country to pieces as far as searching for them, and brought down the regime. If you ask me, it is time to move on. It was pointed out that a credible threat has surfaced that the nest attack might come out of Afghanistan. Well, if this is the case, then lets focus our efforts there, and not Iraq. Hardly enough funding goes into making our country safer, and too much money goes into this foolish war. We have had nothing but sorrow come from this and the day it is over will be a good day for this country as a whole. We are fighting terrorism and not the country of Iraq. Al queda attacked the US...lets go after them...