NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszeswki: “Military commanders, despite this Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government that all U.S. forces would be out by the end of 2011, are already making plans for a significant number of American troops to remain in Iraq beyond that 2011 deadline, assuming that Status of Forces Agreement agreement would be renegotiated. And one senior military commander told us that he expects large numbers of American troops to be in Iraq for the next 15 to 20 years.”

The Washington Post: “[Obama] promised to ‘proceed carefully’ and ‘consult closely’ with military commanders and the Iraqi government, and he said ‘there will surely be difficult periods and tactical adjustments’. Does that mean Mr. Obama is open to altering his plan if al-Qaeda or Iranian-backed militias rebound as U.S. troop levels decline?”

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Tags: American Enterprise Institute, Christian Brose, Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Danielle Pletka, foreign policy, Jim Miklaszewski, NBC, Randy Schoenemann, Status of Forces Agreement, US Military Policy, Washington Post, Withdrawal

Tags: Barack Obama, Center for American Progress, David McKiernan, David Petraeus, Gareth Porter, Huffington Post, Inter Press Service, Jim Miklaszewski, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lawrence Korb, Lyndon Johnson, Mike Mullen, NBC, Robert Gates, Sam Stein, US Military Policy, Vietnam War, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Zbigniew Brzezinski