Troop Drawdown Kabuki

While the AP was reporting this...

President Bush's senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year, administration officials told The Associated Press Tuesday.

The recommendations from the military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker come despite independent government findings Tuesday that Baghdad has not met most of the political, military and economic markers set by Congress.

...ABC News is reporting this-

The top military general in Iraq hinted to ABC's Martha Raddatz that next week's much-anticipated report on the status of the troop surge in Iraq would include a recommendation for troop reduction in March, if not sooner, to avoid a strain on the Army.

The article makes it out to be a completely random decision by Petraeus, ignoring previous reports that the surge would logistically have to end by April '08, because that's when the Army would be at the breaking point and no longer able to sustain the numbers. So, if this is what happens, the White House will expect applause for doing what they were going to have to do anyway, unless they wanted to snap the giant rubberband that is our military.

In summation, it will have taken us well over a year to get back to where we were-- in regards to Iraq troop levels, the war debate, etc-- immediately following the '06 elections. Which, of course, was the point of the surge the whole time.