The key is to keep Americans manning those walls until such time as the Iraqi central government can man them...

This will never happen. That's the whole freaking point. Penning requires less manning. A sure sign of defeat.

Then the sheep start throwing things that go boom over the walls. At anyone on the other side.

The walls will help them hide. The walls slow down access for those few manning the wall to get in to retaliate - and face some really great ambushes.

The IRA killed hundreds of British bastards and lost less than 10 of their own. In Belfast alone. Christ 2 of those blew themselves up by accident. Once the fences went up.

There isn't going to be any functional Central Iraqi Gov't so long as we are there.

The head of the Joint Chiefs recently said that if the US pulled troops out of Iraq in 16 months it would be extremely messy and dangerous...

Messy and dangerous - that is exactly what it is right now.

The surge has suceeded for... Maliki. For his surge to continue to work - he needs us gone with a timetable. We are gumming up his plans.

The surge just didn't work for us...we aren't getting all the oil fields and permanent bases - our definition of victory.

Iraq's defintion of victory may or may not come to pass. Time to recognize it and move on.

At this pace the Joint Chiefs wouldn't advise it.

Who cares? It won't be the same Joint Chiefs giving the advice in a few months.