Marine commander: 'Time is right' for Marines to leave Iraq

By GottaLaff

Six months. The top Marine commander says "six months":

The top Marine commander said Friday that his forces already had begun pulling equipment out of Iraq and that nearly all of his troops could be out in as little as six months.

"The time is right for the Marines to leave Iraq," Gen. James Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said at a breakfast with reporters. Any "sustainment force" in Iraq, he added, will be almost exclusively from the Army. [...]

Throughout much of the war in Iraq, Marines were stationed in largely Sunni Muslim Anbar province, which was the heart of the Sunni insurgency and one of the most violent parts of the country.

Marines there faced some of the largest explosives detonated in Iraq and insurgent tactics such as snipers, causing devastating troop deaths. As the violence subsided, however, Conway pushed for the Marines to begin leaving Iraq, arguing that his forces aren't nation builders but fighters.

One "commander on the ground" has spoken.

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