Does Arcuri Really Reject an Immediate Withdrawal?

President Bush’s speech to the nation on Thursday night has left Rep. Michael Arcuri conflicted and confused about when the United States should begin withdrawing our troops. Here’s the report from News 10 Now:

Congressman Arcuri says he’s not for an immediate withdrawal but says something needs to be done.

“I think we need to set a time table, we need to say about a year, six months, somewhere in that range and begin to bring the troops home immediately, not a small token withdrawal as has been recommended but rather a substantial withdrawal to have them home within a year,” Arcuri said.

Arcuri, always one to follow public-opinion polls rather than his gut, has caught on to the fact that Americans don’t favor an immediate pullout of troops. Three polls this week posed that question to respondents. Here are the answers: 22% in a Fox News poll said to pull out the troops; 26% in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll said to begin the withdrawal now; and 30% in a CBS News/New York Times poll said to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq.

Arcuri is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Despite his supposed opposition to an “immediate” withdrawal, pulling the troops out in six months would pretty much constitute an “immediate” withdrawal given the arrangements that would need to be made for the force of 130,000 currently stationed in Iraq.

Again, this is more evidence that Arcuri should follow the advice of military commanders rather than MoveOn.org.