Oh, I see. You had mentioned both Iraq and Afghanistan in your post. You were referring to the 50k to stay on Iraq not the bump up to 50k in Afghanistan.

So what is the population count in Iraq?

I suppose we could do what we could've done for the UK in WWII and leave the region to its own devices but we all know it's a mad world.

A fool and his money are soon parted.
-Thomas Tusser