The April pull back

I read this with some interest:

WASHINGTON — No matter what Army Gen. David Petraeus tells Congress about the surge in Iraq on Monday, the course for U.S. troops there is already set: Next April, the 30,000 troops who were added this year will begin coming home.

Despite the dueling statistics, the media spin and the maneuvering on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail, no dramatic change in U.S. policy is likely before that, however.

Democrats in Congress who want to force a withdrawal of most combat troops don't have the votes. To pass a law mandating a withdrawal by a certain date, they'd need more Republican support, and most Republicans reject the idea.

U.S. military officials are assuming that the buildup of 30,000 additional American troops will continue until April, although a senior military official told McClatchy Newspapers that they may redeploy a brigade — some 3,500 troops — probably from the Sunni Muslim province of Anbar, where local Iraqi forces can take over. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

By the end of March, however, Pentagon officials said, deployment schedules will force a reduction and the five brigades added for the surge will begin leaving, one month at a time.

Pentagon planners say they can't maintain the surge beyond that without extending deployments beyond the current 15 months, and the nation's top military leaders have said they can't do that with inflicting significant damage on the Army and the Marine Corps.

And, of course, what will happen then? Both parties will take credit for having started a pullout of US troops even though neither party had anything to do with it. There simply weren't enough troops around to sustain the surge.