‘South Korea, one of the closest U.S. allies in Iraq, is preparing a plan to pull its 1,300 troops out of the country, a Defense Ministry official said Friday.

The South Korean presence in Iraq began in 2003 with a 600-strong contingent. The country sent 3,000 more troops the following year at Washington's request, making it the United States' biggest coalition partner after Britain.

However, the troop levels have since gradually declined amid rising public opposition to the mission. Calls for withdrawing the troops reached their peak when Islamic insurgents beheaded a South Korean civilian working in Iraq in June 2004, after Seoul rejected demands to withdraw its forces. South Korea now has about 1,300 troops in Iraq.

"We're drawing up a mission termination plan and will submit it to the National Assembly in June," the official said on condition of anonymity, citing policy. The official declined to give details.’

South Korea Draws Up Iraq Pullout Plan

From the NYT

Cheney Says Democrats Will Back Down on Iraq Timetable
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: April 15, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 15 — Vice President Dick Cheney today called Congressional Democrats irresponsible for using a war spending bill to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. He said he was “willing to bet” the Democrats would eventually give into President Bush’s demands for legislation with no strings attached.

“I think the Congress will pass clean legislation,” Mr. Cheney said, appearing on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” adding, “I do believe that positions that the Democratic leaders have taken, to a large extent now, are irresponsible.”

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Gus: Like most people in the world we wish peace would prevail in Iraq...

But we had the same feelings about Korea, Vietnam and other "theaters" of war. Unfortunately, the tragic plays written by the old men "defending peace by going to war" — sporting a shop front of democratic do-gooding — carry the secret subplot of conquest and raiding resources that others have, including people if there are any left. Nothing has changed since Cesar and Napoleon.

What the Bush's and Cheney's are asking of congress is to let them be the "victors" in the Iraq war — which they started by lying magnificently to con the public into supporting their illegal aggression.

The tragedy of course is that should the Democrats hold the funds back they will be made responsible for "failure", and if they give the blank cheque the President is asking for — victory is not assured, nor is it imperative, nor is it more possible now that it was three years ago... With more money without firm withdrawal by 2008, the pain of war will last longer, leaving the weak Democrats eventually regretting letting the loony-bin lying president do more damage.

The Democrats would be morally bankrupt for having opposed the machine of war to be elected, then funding it more.

The constant niggling by the perpe-"traitors" of ill wind such as Cheney is designed to force the Democrats into a denigrating double dare. But the Democrats have only one way to go: hold on to their ideals and stop providing more fodder to an out of control mad president, a spruiker telling more lies of victory in an unwinnable situation.

The Bush administration is fully responsible for the mess in Iraq... The mess cannot be fixed with twice as many troops or twice as less.

Force can not do any more, despite illusions one can have of "victory". More force now will delay the conflict resolution by another 25 years.

But some — in the back of their grubby mind — would see this as not such a bad thing, including some political leaders in the US... See, the tragedy of greed is being played out.

Because, to some great extent, victory is secondary to the treasure hunters. In the end for the Bushit robber and his coalitors of the bungling, the grand prize was not to remove non-existent WMDs from Iraq, but to wrestle its oil away from others and the Iraqi people themselves...

The treasure of the trillions makes these robbers dribble from the mouth... Sure, modern style robbery is not so obvious as "Hagar The Horrible raiding a Scottish castle..." No. Modern style robbery is constructed by lawyers and laws makers under instruction from a corrupt conqueror — presently the lying US Bushit administration.

The dead are only an unfortunate side show... and were treated as such from the beginning by the condescending looting highway gang led by Rummy Ducky, on behalf of Bushit-the-kid. But unfortunately these gangsters "democratically" rule the world, don't they?

Democrats! Be firm: tell and force the president to stop it — or he'll go blind... If you don't, you're not worth a dime.