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Iraq was ABC's lead--not the current conduct of the so-called surge of US troops--but the Pentagon's plans for what should follow it. Anchor Charles Gibson gave Martha Raddatz' (subscription required) report a misleading introduction when he focused on "when some of our troops can start coming home." True, Raddatz outlined a pair of scenarios containing drawdowns in troop levels, but their major thrust was the continuation of the US military presence rather than its reduction. Medium term, Raddatz contrasted the plans of Gen Raymond Odierno and Gen David Petraeus for troop reductions from the current 150,000 force in the ten month period starting in February 2008: the former would scale down to 100,000; the latter only to 130,000. Long term, the Pentagon plans to build seven permanent bases, housing in total from 30,000 to 50,000 troops until at least 2014, perhaps 2019. The seven bases would consist of the current Camp Victory plus outposts in the "strategic locations" of Irbil, Mosul, Balad, al-Assad, Tallil and Basra.
As for current fighting, NBC's Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon mentioned an incident near Fallujah in which a US tank blew away three children, aged between seven and eleven, during an operation to clear roadside bombs. The Pentagon termed the incident "a regrettable tragedy." Miklaszewski called it "disturbing."
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