The Army's top general said Tuesday a military occupying force for a postwar Iraq could total several hundred thousand soldiers.
Iraq is "a piece of geography that's fairly significant," Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he said any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with "ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."

In response to questioning by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the committee, Shinseki said he couldn't give specific numbers of the size of an occupation force but would rely on the recommendations of commanders in the region.

"How about a range?" said Levin.

"I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," the general said. "Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful."

But Alice in Wonderland is where we are now. The Media pretends, the Beltwasy pretends, everybody supporting this fiasco pretends, that what we are doing somehow has a chance of working.

I have always said that those who say they want us to stay in Iraq are morally bound to demand we implement a serious strategy and demand the right force size and resources. They NEVER EVER do. They instead keep pretending things are getting better. Joe Lieberman repeats his lies continually, with the highlight being his annual repeat of the same column in the Wall Street Journal.

The continued mendaciousness in support of the Bush policy, which has NO CHANCE of success. is simply immoral. What we now have for a strategy in IRaq ia sham, where we continue to believe that the Iraqi security forces will step up. They will NEVER step up for IRAQ. They will step up for their faction. That is what the true story here is:

That view underscores the question of the reliability and combat effectiveness of Iraqi security forces. Essentially, any additional combat power is going to have to come largely from them, as will the capability to "hold" large areas outside the capital. "The Iraqi security forces will be able to sustain and continue to improve their ability to maintain security," Odierno predicted. "They are staying and fighting. They are taking casualties."

Oh please. I could cite quotes that use almost those exact words for the past 3 years. No, they are NOT General. No, they never will General. Stop the charade!

Iraqi security forces are "the weak link," said counterinsurgency expert Krepinevich. The Iraqi government is so factionalized that Iraqi forces remain largely ineffective, he explained: "This is the principal weak spot in our strategy -- and I'm afraid it may be fatal."

MAY? Are you kidding me? WAS fatal. It is over. This is part of the problem. People need to tell the truth, especially those who know it. Stop pussyfooting around.

I think this is the most descriptive portion of the article:

In terms of the fighting, the question may be academic. "There isn't much more land power available for use in Iraq and Afghanistan," retired Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, a former Army chief of staff, recently commented. "We are now 'all in' " -- that is, in poker terms, the U.S. armed forces have put all their chips on the table.

We are all in. But what is not said is that the "river" card has been turned and we lost and all we are doing now is ranting and raving like Phil Hellmuth about how terrible the other players are and how if they had played the "right way" we would be champions. The only question now is when do we cut to a commercial and deal with the reality of Iraq and plan for the next hand.