In the debate last night, Edwards said the following about troops in Iraq:

I cannot make that commitment. But I — well, I can tell you what i would do as president. When I’m sworn into office, come January of 2009, if there are, in fact, as General Petraeus suggests, 100,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, I will immediately draw down 40,000 to 50,000 troops; and over the course of the next several months, continue to bring our combat out of Iraq until all of our combat are, in fact, out of Iraq.

I think the problem is — and it’s what you just heard discussed — is we will maintain an embassy in Baghdad. That embassy has to be protected. We will probably have humanitarian workers in Iraq. Those humanitarian workers have to be protected.

I think somewhere in the neighborhood of a brigade of troops will be necessary to accomplish that, 3,500 to 5,000 troops.

I like John Edwards, but he is wrong.

We do not need the forced labor built monstrosity of an diplomatic compound that we currently have in Iraq. It’s not an embassy, it’s an imperial outpost.

It can be moved to a more secure location, and it should be, and if there is none, then it should be closed, like the US Embassy in Somalia.