Obama Sets Date on Troop Withdrawal

President Obama announced today that the end of Iraq war operations would be set for August 31, 2010. This falls short, by three months, of the time frame that Obama had ran on during his campaign but still speeds the withdrawal from previous expectations. Currently there are 142,000 troops stationed in Iraq. After this scheduled withdrawal 35,000-50,000 troops will remain in the country in order to facilitate training of the Iraqi's own force, civilian protection, and to aid in counterterrorism. This has gone against his parties wishes, yet there will have to be a full withdrawal under the current SOFA agreement by December 31st of 2011 which was signed under Bush. To date more than 4,250 U.S. servicemen and women have died in the war.