Don't think Bush is reducing the troops level by 30,000. No one on the Bush team "has ever used that number"

It's a war without end and now we're starting to realize it's a surge without end. The Bushies were already backing away from a 30,000 troop reduction before Bush even gave his speech. A reduction of 30,000 would bring the troop level back to "pre-surge" levels. Bush isn't going there:

“Somebody made a back-of-the-envelope calculation and put a number, 30,000, out there,” a senior administration official told reporters hours before the speech. “As you know, we have tried to make clear to people in this room and outside this room that no one in the administration has ever used that number. And we cautioned against using that number.”

White House officials said the administration does not want to make predictions “beyond what you can do with reliability.” That means that Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will come back in March “and give a fresh assessment on how we’re doing on the ground, what they can foresee, because we’re six months further down the road at that point, and what the situation will bear.

“So we expect, at that point in March, to hear about additional forces coming home,” the official said.

Wait another six months. It's an endless surge in an endless war. The only thing that is going to end for sure is the second term of Bush's seemingly endless presidency.