Fascinating:

But the plan Obama will outline does not back away in major ways from his pledge to withdraw U.S. combat forces. Instead of a 16-month withdrawal period, as he originally called for, most of the troops now in Iraq would be withdrawn over the next 19 months, leaving by August 2010, senior officials said.

Although taking (slightly) longer than Obama said he wanted to do when he was running for office, it’s still a pretty tight schedule… or so military leaders believe:

In particular, U.S. commanders are worried about Mosul, the bitterly contested northern city, where fighting between Sunni Arabs and Kurds has intensified. Many Sunni militants are believed to have fled north after being driven from longtime strongholds in Baghdad and central Iraq…

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In particular, U.S. commanders are worried about Mosul, the bitterly contested northern city, where fighting between Sunni Arabs and Kurds has intensified. Many Sunni militants are believed to have fled north after being driven from longtime strongholds in Baghdad and central Iraq.

As details of the plan have leaked out in recent days, some Democratic lawmakers and activists voiced disappointment that as many as 50,000 troops could still committed in Iraq for nearly two more years.

For some Democrats, that’s too many. “I have long been for a significant drawback of troops in Iraq,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters in a news conference Thursday. “Fifty-thousand is a higher number than I anticipated.” His comments echoed those made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a day earlier.

And while Obama clearly believes that getting out of Iraq is vital, if only to free up forces that can be used in Afghanistan, which he considers more important, he cannot afford to ignore the warnings of commanders about moving too fast—even if it annoys some of his strongest supporters.

Even so, the field generals didn’t get everything they wanted. There are currently, 14 combat brigades of around 3,500-5,000 soldiers each in the country, a number that will drop to 12 later this year because Army and Marine units once scheduled to go to Iraq have been shifted to Afghanistan.

Odierno presented Obama with three options for drawing down remaining U.S. combat forces over 16 months, 19 months and 23 months.

In lengthy deliberations with Obama and his aides, Odierno made clear his preference for a 23 month drawdown of the remaining combat brigades, keeping as many troops as long as possible.

In other words, the two agreed to compromise.

In any case it’s good to see that Obama is willing to keep U.S. troops a bit longer in Iraq. Then again, 19 months is still a pretty tight schedule; we can only hope that it will indeed all work out like he hopes. If not, Iraq could very well be thrown back into massive civil unrest, which would create a terrible situation in the region.