Apparently we're not the only ones who think that we ain't leaving Iraq for a while

From today's Financial Times, and they're a pretty bright, NON-American publication. Those are usually the best kind, because it lets us step back and take a look at ourselves through something other than the polarized funny-glass. Oh, and props to the BBC as well.

So let's add more to Bush's legacy of record deficits, dwindling national resources, foreign enslavement of Americans through financial beholdenness (can we make that a word?) and a level of corruption in the face of high-and-mighty morality that would confuse even the most bipolar of psych patients.

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US warned on long stay in Iraq as death toll rises
By Daniel Dombey in Brussels and James Boxell in London and Steve Negus, Iraq Correspondent
Published: October 25 2005 11:29 Last updated: October 26 2005 01:59

The US will likely have to retain a sizeable military force in Iraq even after President George W. Bush has left the White House, a leading London-based defence think-tank said on Tuesday.

On the day the number of US soldiers killed in the conflict reached 2,000, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which publishes a comprehensive account of military forces around the world, said that plans by the US to shift combating insurgency to Iraq's own army had not yet borne fruit, while rebels were showing considerable resilience.

On Tuesday, a sergeant died of wounds suffered in a bomb attack on October 17, bringing the death toll for the US military to 2,000.

The IISS report came as Iraq approved its new constitution by a slim margin in a referendum, with strong votes against the charter in Sunni provinces. “The next US administration will have forces in Iraq, and a fairly large number for some years to come,” said Patrick Cronin, director of studies at the institute. He said that US troop withdrawals next year were likely only to be small scale and that it would take “five years at least” for Iraq to generate the 300,000-strong army it needed to fight the insurgency on its own.

Mr Cronin said the US would need to maintain a substantial part of its 150,000 force in the country, even though private security contractors are playing a greater role. The IISS estimates that private security personnel are now the second-largest foreign contingent in Iraq after the US, and comprising a force more than double the size of Britain's 8,500-strong contingent.

Gen George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, said this month that problems with Sunni resistance to the constitution could call into question plans for “fairly substantial” troop withdrawals early next year. On Tuesday, John Chipman, IISS director, warned that there could be an escalation in the conflict between the military arms of the two dominant Shia groups in the south of the country, because of a “fracturing” of the Shia vote. He added that the poll could be also hit by a Sunni boycott similar to the one that afflicted the country's January parliamentary vote. Such a development could undermine the stability and legitimacy of any new government.