In a September 14 Washington Post article on President Bush's September 13 address on Iraq, staff writers Peter Baker and Karen DeYoung reported, “While Bush reached out to Democrats last night, his real targets were congressional Republicans, who despite doubts about the war have stood with him on key votes this year and can sustain any veto.” They added, “The president's call for critics to 'come together' behind his new approach appeared to fall on deaf ears among congressional Democrats, who accused him of exaggerating the results of the troop buildup.” However, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Bush's endorsement of Gen. David Petraeus' recommendation to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq -- a withdrawal of “roughly 21,700 troops” by the summer of 2008, according to the Post, “starting with 5,700 troops by Christmas” of 2007, which would “return the overall force in Iraq to close to where it was at the beginning of” 2007 -- is not a compromise or “reaching out to Democrats,” but a bow to reality, as Petraeus himself testified.

During his September 11 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Petraeus stated that the “active brigade combat teams were going to come out of” Iraq anyway. During his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee the same day, he said that “the strain on the force ... was very much one that informed the recommendations” to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. Petraeus' testimony echoed statements he and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have made in the past about the need to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq regardless of the situation there, as Media Matters has noted.

During his September 11 Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, Petraeus said that he would have recommended withdrawing “the active brigade combat teams” in Iraq, and when Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) suggested that “Reserve and National Guard forces are not available to replace those troops,” Petraeus responded, “I think that's the case, but I don't know because I have not asked.” From the committee hearing:

REED: General Petraeus, have you ever recommended or requested the extension of tours to 18 months or the accelerated deployment of Guard or Reserve forces?

PETRAEUS: I've certainly never recommended extension beyond 15 months. In fact, [Lt.] General [Raymond] Odierno [then-commanding general of Multi-National Force-Iraq] and I put out a letter that said, I mean, unless things got completely out of control, that we would not even think of extending beyond 15 months.

REED: Having done that, doesn't that virtually lock you into a recommendation of reducing troops by 30,000 beginning in April and extending through the summer -- regardless of what's happening on the ground?

PETRAEUS: Depending -- except -- depending on what can be taken out of the Reserves. Again, I don't know what is available in the National Guard and the Reserves. I do know that the active Army in particular, that the string does run out for the Army to meet the year-back criteria. Now what we have done, of course, as I mentioned Senator, is actually, in fact, to take some elements out short of their 15-month mark because of our assessment of the situation.

REED: I understand that, and I think basically my sense is that the overriding constraint you face is not what is happening on the ground in Iraq, but the reality that unless you did recommend, request, and succeed, that unless tours were extended, 30,000 troops were coming out of there beginning in April next year, regardless of the situation on the ground.

PETRAEUS: Again, certainly the active brigade combat teams were going to come out of there. Again, I am not aware of what is available in terms of battalions, brigades, or what have you --

REED: My sense is the Reserve and National Guard forces are not available to replace them.

PETRAEUS: I think that's the case, but I don't know because I have not asked.

Additionally, during the Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) said that extending tours of duty to 15 months “violates everything that I've ever heard about from the day I was born being around the United States military.” Petraeus then responded that “the strain on the force, again, was very much one that informed the recommendations” to draw down U.S. troops from Iraq. From the hearing:

WEBB: Here's the difficulty I have and it's the reason I put this amendment into the system. When the Army went to 15 months, General [George] Casey, as [Army] chief of staff, called me to inform me, and I said, “How can you do this? How can you cause people to serve 15-month deployments with the supposed good news that they're going to get 12 months at home? It just violates everything that I've ever heard about from the day I was born being around the United States military.” He said, “We feed the strategy. They tell us the number of people that they need and we feed the strategy.” And then from the strategic side it's, “We build the strategy and they feed us the troops.” And somewhere in here, in my view, there has to be the notion that after four and a half years in Iraq we need to be shaping the operational environment to the well being on a floor for our troops.

PETRAEUS: Senator, that is, as I mentioned, that is something that very much informed my recommendation. In fact, as I mentioned several of the brigades will in fact come out before the 15-month mark because of the way that we will be withdrawing brigades without replacement. And the strain on the force, again, was very much one that informed the recommendations that I have made. And it will inform the recommendations that I have made for the point beyond which we've already made recommendations on.

As Media Matters also noted, Petraeus' testimony echoed statements he and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have made in the past about the need to draw down U.S. troops from Iraq regardless of the situation on the ground. For instance, the Associated Press reported in an August 15 article that, during an interview, Petraeus stated: “We know that the surge has to come to an end. There's no question about that.” He continued: “I think everyone understands that by about a year or so from now we've got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now. The question is how do you do that ... so that you can retain the gains we have fought so hard to achieve and so you can keep going.”

USA Today reported on September 4 that “Pentagon officials have said they cannot sustain this year's buildup of about 28,000 additional troops past next spring because of the stretched personnel demands on the U.S. military.” The Los Angeles Times also reported in an August 24 article that Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half.” The article continued: “Administration and military officials say ... Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military.”

Moreover, the AP reported on August 19 that “the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force,” which “presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008: Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule. Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months,” and "[b]reaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war." The article quoted Casey as saying that "[t]he demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply":

When asked what units will fill the void in the coming spring if any need to be replaced, officials give a grim shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders or a palms-up, empty-handed gesture.

“The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply,” the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said last week. “Right now we have in place deployment and mobilization policies that allow us to meet the current demands. If the demands don't go down over time, it will become increasingly difficult for us to provide the trained and ready forces” for other missions.

From the September 14 edition of The Washington Post:

President Bush tried to turn a corner in the fractious debate over Iraq last night by ordering the first limited troop withdrawals since voters elected an antiwar Congress last year. But the move did little to appease Democratic leaders, who dismissed it as a token gesture masking an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops.

Bush said progress on the ground means he can pull out by next summer the additional combat forces he sent in January -- roughly 21,700 troops -- and he opened the door to further troop reductions if conditions improve. Although the president offered no forecast for how long it will take, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Washington Post reporters and editors yesterday that current U.S. projections anticipate Iraq reaching nationwide “sustainable security” by June 2009.

[...]

The president's call for critics to “come together” behind his new approach appeared to fall on deaf ears among congressional Democrats, who accused him of exaggerating the results of the troop buildup. “The American people long ago lost faith in the president's leadership of the war in Iraq because his rhetoric has never matched the reality on the ground,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). “The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment and the president's plan for an endless war in Iraq.”

[...]

The net effect of the announced reductions will be to return the overall force in Iraq to close to where it was at the beginning of the year. The shift will start this month when a Marine expeditionary unit leaves Anbar province without being replaced. An Army brigade will leave Iraq in mid-December. Four other brigades and two Marine battalions will then be pulled out by mid-July, about one month earlier than the last of the “surge” troops would have left anyway under current deployment rules.

Neither Petraeus nor White House aides would say how many troops that would involve, but typical force sizes for such units would add up to about 21,700, about the same number Bush initially announced in January that he was sending to Iraq. Petraeus and Bush made no commitments to pulling out another 8,000 support troops who later became part of the buildup, although officials said at least some of them probably would come home, too.

[...]

While Bush reached out to Democrats last night, his real targets were congressional Republicans, who despite doubts about the war have stood with him on key votes this year and can sustain any veto. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the president's withdrawal of some forces “meets a demand that many of my members have been looking for” and pronounced himself “very optimistic” that this would ease concerns on the Republican side. “We've turned the corner on Iraq,” McConnell said.

Other Republicans were not convinced. “If the Iraqis fail to take appropriate action to accomplish political settlement within their country, the United States should consider dramatically accelerating its disengagement,” said Rep. Phil English (Pa.), a moderate who has so far stuck with the president.