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Bring US troops in Iraq home: Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - One of America's premier newspapers wrote Sunday that
the time has come to bring US troops home from Iraq, as support across the
United States for continuing US military operations there continues to
erode.

"After four years of war, more than 350 billion dollars spent and 3,363 US
soldiers killed and 24,310 wounded, it seems increasingly obvious that an
Iraqi political settlement cannot be achieved in the shadow of an indefinite
foreign occupation," the moderately left-of-center newspaper wrote.

"Having invested so much in Iraq, Americans are likely to find disengagement
almost as painful as war. But the longer we delay planning for the
inevitable, the worse the outcome is likely to be," the LA Times editorial
read.

"The time has come to leave."

The paper wrote that the US government "should immediately declare its
intention to begin a gradual troop drawdown, starting no later than the
fall."

It added that a current "surge" of tens of thousands of additional US troops
in Iraq does not appear to have turned the tide of sectarian violence and
insurgent attacks.

"This newspaper reluctantly endorsed the US troop surge as the last, best
hope for stabilizing conditions so that the elected Iraqi government could
assume full responsibility for its affairs. But we also warned that the
troops should not be used to referee a civil war," the daily wrote.

"That, regrettably, is what has happened."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070506/ts_alt_afp/usiraqmediamilitary

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Johnny Asia, Guitarist from the Future
http://music.download.com/johnnyasia

Want to know what's really going on in Iraq?
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html

"I will make a bargain with the Republicans.
If they will stop telling lies about Democrats,
we will stop telling the truth about them." -

Adlai Stevenson, former Illinois Governor
and democratic presidential candidate.