RUMSFELD: TIME TO "ADJUST" THE WHOLE MILITARY TO IRAQ

Oh that Rummy. What a fun guy! He just loves to make a point:

The United States will make fundamental changes in its troop presence on the Korean Peninsula as well as in Europe, where U.S. defenses have stood guard against threats that have disappeared or no longer require such a large force, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

"It's time to adjust those locations from static defense to a more agile and a more capable and a more 21st century posture," Rumsfeld said.
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Rumsfeld did not mention perhaps the most immediate change: the move of a 2nd Infantry division brigade this summer to Iraq from its traditional posts in South Korea. The Pentagon has not said whether that unit would return to South Korea.
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Without tying his comments directly to South Korea, Rumsfeld appeared to be alluding to the anti-American protests that are staged periodically in Seoul when he said, "We want our forces where they're wanted, where it's hospitable."

Why of course, who can't see the logic in all this? Why spread our forces across three continents where they can be mobilized at a moment's notice when we can concentrate them in one country, Iraq? Heck, I imagine Rummy/Chain-gang/Shrublet have decided that war is just too "untidy and ugly and dangerous" -- if North Korea rears its nuclear head they'll probably just nuke the place. After all, it's easier to get forgiven than to get permission. And besides, everyone knows that all the real threats are from radical Islamic terrorists, and they're all in Arab countries. We need to have all our troops amassed in that region so we can get to Syria and Iran quickly when we decide to invade them.

And what's that trashtalk about wanting our forces "where they're wanted, where it's hospitable." IRAQ IS HOSPITABLE????? I don't notice any U.S. soldiers dying in South Korea -- oh wait, he's referring to protests, not to violent attacks. Doh! It's patently clear that our soldiers are under greater threats from protest signs in South Korea than from insurgents, terrorists and just plain angry Iraqis.

UPDATE: More about force adjustment here:

The Pentagon has proposed a plan to withdraw its two Army divisions from Germany and undertake an array of other changes in its European-based forces, in the most significant rearrangement of the American military around the world since the beginning of the cold war, according to American and allied officials.