“I do not have time to search the Internet every time someone mentions an unbiased poll, so I used an already established source to determine if the poll might have some bias. I have already listed my source. I believe my source to be reliable. Others can make up their mind about who they consider reliable.”

(Yes, I read and listen across the political spectrum on a regular basis.)

It’s an interesting source, to be sure, but I don’t treat any website as ‘gospel truth.’

Scott - I tend to agree. Winding down force levels doesn’t have to be a disaster, and politically it’s probably all that’s possible. How we do that will be critical for the results. Personally, I think the best-worst COA is to announce a plan that writes a timeline on the wall for the Iraqi factions: find a workable compromise by this date (which should be a ways out) or reap the whirlwind. Right now they seem to think that they can jockey for advantage over other factions, and if things blow up, the Americans will just surge in and pick up the pieces. Meanwhile the various insurgent factions attack us because they think (occasionally with some justice) that we’re backing their enemies. A large part of the reason the Sunnis kept allowing terrorists operational space was because they viewed them as a resource against US-backed (in their minds) Shia hegemony. Eventually they woke up (pun intended) to the fact that the terrorist cure was far worse than the disease, but as long as their communities continue to feel that the national government is their enemy, the gains are fragile. Replay the same tape for SCIRI and Mahdi Army, Turkmen and Kurds… etc. These politicians hanging out in the heavily fortified, relatively peaceful Green Zone - which, if you’re a good little soldier, you might be allowed to visit for a couple days as R&R - don’t seem much more in touch with the realities of Iraqi life than US voters. They need to “wake up” to the fact that they can’t hunker down there forever. Heck, I sometimes wonder if they have a conflict of interest: if they finally start cutting real deals, then we might actually leave them accountable to their population.

But that’s just me waxing a little bitter and frustrated.

pagar - Whatever Quigley’s opinion may be - and Quigley is certainly a fairly popular fellow for people whose conspiracy theories center on CFR - I don’t think that the long list of conservatives on the council “believe national boundaries should be eliminated and one world rule established” either. The previous issue of Foreign Affairs featured one article from Richardson and one from Huckabee. In 2002 they published an influential article by Kenneth Pollack advocating the invasion of Iraq. If the CFR indeed “believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established,” then there’s a whole lot of folks on the CFR who didn’t get the memo.

Concerning the Council on Foreign Relations, a quick Google of those words shows 4,500,000 entries Including this one from Screen Number 1 of the 4,500,000.
Link

“, Professor of History at Georgetown University, stated, “The Council of Foreign Relations is the American Branch of a society which originated in England and believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established.” [4]

Do I believe national boundaries should be eliminated and one world rule established?
No. Therefore I repeat, I stand by the judgement shown by http://www.discoverthenetwork.com.

Point remains….Iraq will continue-forces downgraded, but continue

We all have some degree of tunnel vision when we look at ourselves, do we not? Bringing in knowledgeable outside voices is a good thing, simply because they can often see things that we might otherwise miss. I also think that there is some pressure on active-duty soldiers to ‘accentuate the positive,’ so to speak; again, bringing in experienced persons from outside the chain of command helps strip away some of the gloss.

I am not saying that we regard these as definitive voices; I merely suggest that their opinions are valuable. Let me put it another way - I’d rather hear what they have to say than 95% of the talking heads in the media, eh?