Those who advocate a "rapid withdrawal" from Iraq should recall that it took over two years to disengage in Vietnam, but it was completed, on schedule, 90 days after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. It was about two years after that when the North violated the conditions of the armistice and invaded the South.

Abandoning everything where it is and driving south to Kuwait would, besides leaving Iraq in worse chaos than it is now, result in a couple of hundred thousand troops being crammed into a small area, with the need to bring in massive amounts of supplies to sustain them until they can be lifted out.