A TIMELINE FROM PETRAEUS

He's said this before but this is the latest one. From an inteview he gave to ABC:

As for the duration, U.S. troops will remain in Iraq. The top commander said he sees this as a "traditional counterinsurgency," which would typically last a decade.

So, it's about 5.5 more years. On the question of withdrawal, he only mentioned the strain on our ground forces:

"The surge will run its course. There are limits to what our military can provide, so, my recommendations have to be informed by — not driven by — but they have to be informed by the strain we have put on our military services," Gen. David Petraeus said in the interview at Camp Victory in Baghdad. "That has to be a key factor in what I will recommend."

Here's where Petraeus seems to LIE:

"Eight of the past 11 weeks have seen the number of incidents, the number of attacks, come down, and to the point that they reached a level that's about the lowest in well over a year, I think," he said. "Civilian casualties [are] still certainly too high. But again, pretty substantial progress, and certainly, trending very much in the right direction."

As far as I've found, this simply isn't true (here and here). Petraeus also said Syria was doing more to prevent Al Qaeda operatives from sneaking in to Iraq and provided a tidbit for the wingnut morons who think it's ALL Al Qaeda, ALL the time:

"We believe that there have been fewer suicide bombers coming through Syria, and we are cautious about this assessment, but we do think that the Syrians may have been taking more active steps against al Qaeda, which is understandable," Petraeus said. "I mean, if al Qaeda were ever to succeed in Iraq, the next thing they'd do is turn … [to] Damascus. I can assure you."