US occupation of Iraq to continue: "The Pentagon announced yesterday that it was scrapping a plan to reduce American forces in Iraq and instead would keep about 135,000 U.S. troops there through the end of next year."

The plan is the same as ever. To dominate Iraq militarily for the indefinite future. We're looking at a planned occupation of years at least and perhaps a decade or more. If the resistance continues to fight we are looking at an awful lot of bloodshed. A key difference between Iraq and Vietnam is the energy reserves of the Middle East. Vietnam had nothing, but Iraq and the region has everything. Just as Middle east oil is a "stupendous source of strategic power", "the greatest material prize in world history", it would be a stupendous strategic defeat for the US to be thrown out of Iraq by indigenous resistance. US planners clearly have no intention of letting this happen.

US occupation of Iraq to continue: "The Pentagon announced yesterday that it was scrapping a plan to reduce American forces in Iraq and instead would keep about 135,000 U.S. troops there through the end of next year."

The plan is the same as ever. To dominate Iraq militarily for the indefinite future. We're looking at a planned occupation of years at least and perhaps a decade or more. If the resistance continues to fight we are looking at an awful lot of bloodshed. A key difference between Iraq and Vietnam is the energy reserves of the Middle East. Vietnam had nothing, but Iraq and the region has everything. Just as Middle east oil is a "stupendous source of strategic power", "the greatest material prize in world history", it would be a stupendous strategic defeat for the US to be thrown out of Iraq by indigenous resistance. US planners clearly have no intention of letting this happen.