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Further evidence it's unlikely miilitary action will spread to Syria:
U.S. Reduces Air Power Near Iraq as Fighting Wanes
Mon April 14, 2003 03:57 PM ET
By Charles Aldinger and Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States sharply reduced the number of warplanes pounding Iraq on Monday and is now mixing a steady flow of troops into the country to include more military police and engineers, the Pentagon said.
A senior military officer said two of the five U.S. aircraft carriers used against Iraq were being returned home from the Gulf and that more soldiers designed to stabilize and rebuild Iraq were moving into the battered country. Key radar-evading Air Force jets also were going home.
The move came as U.S. Marines took control of Tikrit, hometown of missing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in what could be the last major combat operation of the more than 3-week-old war.
"Clearly, the requirements for civil affairs, engineer organizations, military police will be significant" in the weeks ahead, Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters when asked about the nearly 150,000 U.S. and British troops already in Iraq.
"In fact, that's designed into the force flow. I think you're seeing it right now," added McChrystal, vice director of operations on the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
While again refusing to declare outright victory, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that major progress was being made toward stabilizing Iraq after last week's fall of Saddam's government.
"I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over because the major Iraqi units on the ground cease to show coherence," McChrystal added.
He said two carriers were being brought home and that fewer than 200 bombs had been dropped on Iraq in the previous 24 hours compared to more than 1,000 daily at the height of a war to depose Saddam's government.
KITTY HAWK, CONSTELLATION COMING HOME
Navy officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that the carriers USS Kitty Hawk and USS Constellation -- with 75 warplanes each -- had received orders to move from the region in the next few days. That will leave one U.S. carrier in the Gulf and two in the Mediterranean.
At Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, a spokesman said that all of the U.S. radar-evading B-2 stealth bombers had already been returned home from the region.
Smaller F-117 stealth fighters will also be returned to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico in the coming days, according to base spokesman Robert Pepper. He said the angular black jets would land "sometime this week."
McChrystal was careful to stress that the number of American troops in Iraq -- already at about 125,000 -- was increasing.
"There have been no ground units that have redeployed (back home) at this point," he said, adding that "the mix of U.S. forces will continue to be adjusted."
"Today was the last day that aircraft from all five carrier battle groups will fly missions into Iraq," McChrystal said.
Return of the Kitty Hawk to its home base of Yokosuka, Japan, and the Constellation to San Diego, California, will reduce U.S. naval air power in the region to the carriers USS Nimitz in the Gulf and the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Harry Truman in the eastern Mediterranean.
During the three weeks of war, Air Force and Navy jets have flown thousands of strike missions against Iraq from five U.S. aircraft carriers and from land bases throughout the region and in Britain.
The Navy said over the weekend that one of the two carriers in eastern Mediterranean might also be soon returned home.
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Syria
Again at what point in time can I say I told you so (not necessarily directed at you renegade)?
. Even if I wanted Bush to be reelected I would change my mind and hope he fails anyway, and hope that a neo-liberal plot takes control and rules the world 
He was a little too quick with the name calling there.
