Well estimates say that we need between 70,000 and 120,000 in additional ground forces to secure Iraq. I am not sure what the remaing reserve force strength is in the US at the moment but I do not think we have that many active duty soliders remaing on US soil. I know there are several regiments that just got called back to duty. But to come up with an additional ground force of 100k they have to come from somewhere.

Kerry has made it evident that he wants more troops on the ground in Iraq and at the rate of the "volunteer" sign up I would have to say that if Kerry gets elected I bet you can count on a "draft" of some sort.

I think Bush's tactic is going to be to hit them with more firepower. We have already seen this as ground forces are no longer willing to "skirmish" with insurgents using small arms and have started to just call in 500lb to 1000lb bombs on them instead. You pound them into submission then begin the clean up work. You take more civillian casualties that way, but hopefully the normal citizens of Fallujah and other towns will wise up and put an end to the insurgency. They just dont seem to understand that if they would just stop fighting we would give them their country back and us leaving will come a lot faster. Then once we are gone they can do whatever they want. But instead they think terrorizing their own people will make us leave. ITS THEIR OWN CITIZENS THEY ARE HURTING THE MOST.

Kerry will have $17 Billion of Iraq reconstrction funds that have not been allocated. Billions to our allies companies, in the form of removing the cronyism to Halliburton/Bechtel/Global Crossing, will get us troops from them.
You think Team Bush will revere their stripes?

Why would they store the body bags at Dover, when the bodies are produced in Iraq, and then shipped to Dover? Do they pick up the body bags there when they drop off the bodies?

I sure don't think it would be a good idea to store the bags in Iraq, or for the media to have that information, because it would be moral killer, but why would they send them to Dover, for that very same reason?

All I can say is these things are not right and people that are working in military bases like my husband can see it.

Just today when he came from work he told me that two more of the "marines office personnel" has been assign to Camp lejeune, this soldiers are "office" soldiers they are in retirement time with more than 20 + years they have never been in combat but they as any other marine received their arms training and qualifications yearly. Now they are going to take a crash curse in combat, and then they are going to Iraq.

Now the word around is that the marines are so short of troops that they are taking any able body to fill spaces.

Now, why is this happening? Well could it be that the death toll is more than we has been told in the recent weeks or that the government needs more troops to control the country for the elections in January.

Whatever they are doing they are not telling.

Win or lose Bush is still in control until the end of January.

Right now military operations in Iraq are on "hold" until after the election. There are plans for offensives in over 30 towns to "control" or "ready" them for the Iraqi elections in January.

Since Bush will still be calling the shots after Tuesday you can bet that military operations will go forward with no regard for the consequences (even if he wins since no third term is possible).

Perhaps that is why the military supply line ramp up is occuring now. Dark days ahead no matter who wins.

Originally posted by Gools
Win or lose Bush is still in control until the end of January.

True, but if Kerry wins, I wouldn't put it past Bush to make it very hard for Kerry to do better when he took office. Bush is the type of person that would make someone else look bad just to make himself look good. For the sake of posterity, it would still be in Bush's interest to inflame his supporters into a 'I told you so' campaign...

Either way, we're going to be seeing a lot of those 'Don't blame me, I voted for [insert idiot]' bumper stickers anyway.

[edit on 28-10-2004 by DeltaChaos]

I think Bush's tactic is going to be to hit them with more firepower. We have already seen this as ground forces are no longer willing to "skirmish" with insurgents using small arms and have started to just call in 500lb to 1000lb bombs on them instead. You pound them into submission then begin the clean up work. You take more civillian casualties that way, but hopefully the normal citizens of Fallujah and other towns will wise up and put an end to the insurgency. They just dont seem to understand that if they would just stop fighting we would give them their country back and us leaving will come a lot faster. Then once we are gone they can do whatever they want. But instead they think terrorizing their own people will make us leave. ITS THEIR OWN CITIZENS THEY ARE HURTING THE MOST.

But don't you see that is where the US goes wrong. Dropping a 1000lb bomb and killing civvys just drives more people to support the insurgents. That tactic has never worked.
If it did why not just nuke them.