All but a few dozen of the 16,000 Marines now in Iraq will be out by next spring, the Marine Corps commandant said Thursday, putting a solid end date on a long-anticipated exit. Gen. James T. Conway said his Marine commanders are already moving equipment out of Anbar Province, where his forces have largely been concentrated. But the larger exodus will begin shortly after the Iraqi elections.
"I see the number going down to essentially zero in, I think, sometime in spring 2010," Conway told an audience at the National Press Club. The only exception, he said, will be about 30 Marines who will be working with Iraq's fledgling Marine Corps securing oil platforms in the south around Basra.
Would it be asking too much for the Marines to keep a 2,000-man MEU in Anbar to reassure the Sunni tribes that flipped sides in late 2006 under the Marine-dominated American forces there?
