Leave Iraq

A Plot to Keep US Troops in Iraq?
John Isaacs, Council for a Livable World advocacy@clw.org to Dick
July 26, 2011
Dear Dick,
One of the three American wars is finally coming to a halt.
Or is it?
The United States is engaged in three conflicts:  Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
The George W. Bush Administration signed an agreement with Iraq in November 2008 that requires all American troops to exit from Iraq by December 31, 2011.
But, there is always a but . . .
Write your Member of Congress urging him or her to sign a letter to the President urging that the troops leave on schedule.
The "but" is that the Pentagon and Iraqi political and military leaders are angling to extend the deadline and keep up to 15,000 American troops indefinitely beyond the deadline.
Recently, the new Secretary of Defense demanded the Iraqi leaders to speed up their request U.S. troops to stay: "Dammit, make a decision."
But it is time to go.
The American military involvement in the Iraq War that started in 2003 has caused almost 4,500 American deaths and over 33,000 wounded -- and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. The war has cost American taxpayers over $780 billion at a time when domestic programs are being slashed.
Please send a message to Congress to urge a final withdrawal.
Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) are asking their colleagues to sign a letter to the President urging all troops to leave by the end of the year.
They write: “Leaving troops and military contractors in Iraq beyond the deadline is not in our nation’s security interests, it is not in our nation’s strategic interests, and it is not in our nation’s economic interests.”
If many of their colleagues sign this letter, it can have an impact on the President’s decision to end American military involvement in Iraq.
Send an e-mail to your Member of Congress today.
Thank you for helping in this important campaign.

Please send a message to Congress to urge a final withdrawal.

John Isaacs and Guy Stevens
P.S. Please take a look at this essay written by Lt. General Robert Gard (USA, Ret.), the chair of our associated Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.