Factchecking the State of the Union

Troop Drawdowns
Bush was correct when he said that some U.S. troops are returning from Iraq, but so far the drawdown only amounts to a few thousand.

Bush: As part of this transition, one Army brigade combat team and one Marine Expeditionary Unit have already come home and will not be replaced. In the coming months, four additional brigades and two Marine battalions will follow suit. Taken together, this means more than 20,000 of our troops are coming home.

This is accurate. The president actually announced the return in a press conference on Jan. 8, 2007. On Jan. 10, 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed Bush's statement:

Gates: Based on the latest information available to me, we are on track to carry out the reductions that General Petraeus talked about and that the president approved last September – as the president indicated, I think, just yesterday or today, the one brigade that's already out, the Marine battalions that are out, and then proceeding with the additional brigades.

According to the Defense Department, Petraeus' September recommendations included removing a Marine Expeditionary Unit in September 2007 and an Army brigade combat team in mid-December, followed by four more brigade combat teams and two Marine battalions during the first seven months of 2008. The total reduction should be about 20,000 troops.

The Pentagon won't say how many troops have come home already, but an MEU generally has about 2,200 Marines, while a BCT can have anywhere between 2,500 and 4,200 members. So, at most, somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,400 troops have come home already. To put that in context, at the peak of the surge  about 162,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq. Prior to the surge, the total was about 130,000, according to The New York Times.