I was hoping to avoid this, but the self-rightous partisanship in such a statement needs to be challenged.

Anyone familiar with my position knows I believe NO candidate tells us the truth as to why we will not leave Iraq....I think ALL candidates know we will not leave, but consider the truth to be political suicide...so go ahead and try and paint me partisan here.

Since J totes the Democrat banner and Hillary seems to be his model candidate, we will start with her.

When J says: Democrats: Get out of Iraq........he surely means this is Hillary's position.

Before I begin, I will say a few things....things are said by candidates during campaigns which are intended to be vague in order to not be required to give specifics and for political expediency. Specifics can be analyzed and debated....vagueness cannot.

Any officer or CEO worth his/her weight in salt knows that effective plans for success include contigencies (planB) for when primary objectives fail or intangibles present themselves.

Having a plan to "get out of Iraq"....again...the political reality of this region dictates need for a plan B, C, D, etc...unless one believes merely saying "Come home" makes it realistically so....all the while, ignoring real issues of geo-political consequence.

So...Hillary wants out of Iraq....lets go to her website and get her policy statement...I apologize for it's length, but do not want to be accused of leaving anything out:

Blue= Political speak= Nothing "specific" about ending the war and bringing "troops home"= Political "wish list"

Red= Key statement for "specific" plan proposed.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Ending the War in Iraq

Hillary Clinton has announced her plan to end the war in Iraq and urged President Bush to act immediately.

"Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war -- not next year, not next month -- but today.

"We have heard for years now that as the Iraqis stand up, our troops will stand down. Every year, we hear about how next year they may start coming home. Now we are hearing a new version of that yet again from the president as he has more troops in Iraq than ever and the Iraqi government is more fractured and ineffective than ever.

"Well, the right strategy before the surge and post-escalation is the same: start bringing home America's troops now."

If President Bush does not end the war, when Hillary Clinton is president, she will. Her three-step plan would bring our troops home, work to bring stability to the region, and replace military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq's future. Hillary has been fighting every day in the Senate to force the president to change course. And today she described how she would bring the war to an end.

Starting Phased Redeployment within Hillary's First Days in Office: The most important part of Hillary's plan is the first: to end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home. As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration. She would also direct the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to prepare a comprehensive plan to provide the highest quality health care and benefits to every service member -- including every member of the National Guard and Reserves -- and their families.

Securing Stability in Iraq as we Bring our Troops Home. As president, Hillary would focus American aid efforts during our redeployment on stabilizing Iraq, not propping up the Iraqi government. She would direct aid to the entities -- whether governmental or non-governmental -- most likely to get it into the hands of the Iraqi people. She would also support the appointment of a high level U.N. representative -- similar to those appointed in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo -- to help broker peace among the parties in Iraq.

A New Intensive Diplomatic Initiative in the Region. In her first days in office, Hillary would convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all of the states bordering Iraq. The- mission of this group would be to develop and implement a strategy to create a stable Iraq. It would have three specific goals:

    * Non-interference. Working with the U.N. representative, the group would work to convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved in the civil war.
    * Mediation. The group would attempt to mediate among the different sectarian groups in Iraq with the goal of attaining compromises on fundamental points of disputes.
    * Reconstruction funding. The members of the group would hold themselves and other countries to their past pledges to provide funding to Iraq and will encourage additional contributions to meet Iraq's extensive needs.

As our forces redeploy out of Iraq, Hillary would also organize a multi-billion dollar international effort -- funded by a wide range of donor states -- under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to address the needs of Iraqi refugees. And as we replace military force with diplomacy and global leadership,Hillary will not lose sight of our very real strategic interests in the region. She would devote the resources we need to fight terrorism and will order specialized units to engage in narrow and targeted operations against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in the region.

www (dot) hillaryclinton (dot) com/issues/iraq/
____________________________________________________________________
Key statements:

-to end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home.

Nice sound bite.

What kind of troops? How many?  From where?  What if violence starts up again in areas we retreat from....do we go back? Do we leave completely, or leave a smaller force? How small? What is the smaller forces objectives?

-convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration.

What if they are proponents and architects of the surge? What if they tell her they have what they need to maintain current operational status? What if they tell her that the Theater Commander in Iraq requests to keep current troop levels to maintain current levels of violence? What if they tell her she sacrifices security with less troops?  What if violence flares again...keep retreating?  Drawdown to what level?

-focus American aid efforts during our redeployment on stabilizing Iraq, not propping up the Iraqi government. She would direct aid to the entities -- whether governmental or non-governmental -- most likely to get it into the hands of the Iraqi people. She would also support the appointment of a high level U.N. representative -- similar to those appointed in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo -- to help broker peace among the parties in Iraq.

Direct aid to what "entities?" What if they divert aid by sectarian lines? How would you know? How do you keep aid from reaching insurgents? What kind of message do you give by stating "not propping up the Iraqi government" to Maliki and the Shiia majority? What does "most likely to get into hands of the Iraqi people" mean....she's not confident or not sure it will?  She willing to fatten the insurgency with US aid at the expense of "most likely to get into hands of the Iraqi people?" What makes anyone sure the UN is intrested in helping the US? What makes anyone believe the UN can broker peace between Sunni, Shiia and Kurd....their success with Israel/Palestine?

The UN has it's own issues with regards to Iraq:
 
.....Ban's Iraq strategy has drawn fire from within the U.N. bureaucracy, where the main staff union protested the decision to send more workers to Iraq. Many in the organization remain embittered and traumatized by the killing of 22 U.N. officials in August 2003 by a suicide bomber. Ban's own visit to Baghdad in March was marred by a mortar explosion inside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, near where he and Maliki were holding a news conference.

Ban said in an interview last week that he is mindful of the risks and that he has obtained personal assurances from President Bush to guarantee protection for U.N. staff. He has also requested more than $300 million from the U.N. General Assembly to build a reinforced compound in Baghdad.

"I share the concerns of the staff union about the security issues, and I told them that safety and security of our own staff is of paramount interest to me," Ban said. "I will ensure that, before we move in, we will take necessary actions, including integrated and strengthened accommodations."

U.N. officials cautioned that the scope of the organization's role will be determined by security conditions in Iraq and by the willingness of the United States and Iraq to permit U.N. diplomats leeway to do their work. The Iraqi government had been reluctant to grant carte blanche to the United Nations in negotiations with the country's military insurgents.

"I think the Iraqi political leadership is committed to expanding the political process," said Feisal Istrabadi, who served until last month as Iraq's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations. "But do you bring in people who have targeted Iraqi civilians and who have blood on their hands? Well, ultimately I suppose a rational answer to that is yes. But how you bring your constituencies along into accepting the idea that these people ought to be brought into the process is very, very, very difficult."

Istrabadi said key regional powers that attended Saturday's meeting, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, have yet to commit to supporting a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

"At some point, you have to get over the fact that the Americans have troops there and think of your own country's regional interest, and that frankly has been lacking," said Istrabadi, who is now teaching law at Indiana University. "We still have Saudi Arabia and Jordan emptying their radicals into Iraq via Syria. We still have Iran supporting multiple sides of what could end up being a brutal civil war."

www (dot) washingtonpost (dot) com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201353_pf.html]Source

-convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all of the states bordering Iraq. The- mission of this group would be to develop and implement a strategy to create a stable Iraq. It would have three specific goals:

    * Non-interference. Working with the U.N. representative, the group would work to convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved in the civil war.
    * Mediation. The group would attempt to mediate among the different sectarian groups in Iraq with the goal of attaining compromises on fundamental points of disputes.
    * Reconstruction funding. The members of the group would hold themselves and other countries to their past pledges to provide funding to Iraq and will encourage additional contributions to meet Iraq's extensive needs

This is a re-hash of the above "key statement" prone to the same questions and observations above.

"convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved"  How? Threat of war? Buy them off? What keeps them from taking money and "getting involved"

What makes anyone believe "past pledges" mean anything 5 years after the war started?

Does proposing a "plan for getting out of Iraq" that is honeycombed in vagueness and as clear as a bowl of oatmeal really considered a "serious" plan one should use to seperate oneself from the rest of the candidates?

IMHO, proposing a plan hinging on so many variables not under your control, is vague and can be rendered impotent and meaningless by something as simple as a mosque bombing is equal to having no plan at all.

If someone is ignorant of the political realities of the Middle East and fails to ask or consider serious questions of those running for President's "plans"...then they deserve exactly what they get.

I guess I'm not surprised there's no discussion on the core concept of the post.....no difference on the reality Iraq poses to candidates and that both parties are the same on keeping troops there.....one group is "we're staying until the job is done"....the other is "we're leaving but won't even discuss what, when, where, why and how and possibilities we may have to stay after all"