Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — Iraq is stable enough to allow the roughly 22,000 U.S. Marines there to withdraw, the service’s top general said Friday.
“The time is right for Marines in general terms to leave Iraq,” said Marine Corps Commandant James Conway.
The war has become largely a nation- building mission rather than the pitched fighting in which the Marine Corps excels, Conway said.
Conway said he wants to see up to 20,000 Marines deployed instead to the expanding fight in Afghanistan, especially in the south, where insurgents and the Taliban and al-Qaeda benefit from both a nearby safe haven and a booming trade in narcotics. The Associated Press
