by Frank James

A Republican congressional aide wanted to get give Capitol Hill journalists a sense of how difficult it would be to quickly move thousands of U.S. troops out of Iraq into neighboring countries.

So he came up with a thought experiment: how quickly and smoothly would moving the entire Washington press corps to Jacksonville, Fla. go. (This may have been a projection on his part. A lot of people in Washington would obviously like nothing better than if we in the media here just disappeared.)

There are a few problems with the hypothesis. For one, Jacksonville is more than twice the distance from Washington than Baghdad is to Kuwait. Also, the military is geared for such movements of personnel and materiel. That, after all, is what they do.

But let's play along anyway.

POP QUIZ—A LOGISTICAL CHALLENGE

How hard would it be to move the Washington press corps to Jacksonville?

General Petraeus provided the Congress with a reasonable plan to drawdown our forces—safely—over the next nine months. If history is any guide, Democrats at the press conference today will say that we should redeploy more troops in a shorter period of time.

Pop quiz:

How long does it take to redeploy a brigade (roughly 5,000 personnel) and their support units in peacetime? What about five brigades?

How much longer does such a redeployment take in a combat situation while simultaneously moving troops around the battlefield to continue the mission of the outgoing troops?

Can our military safely move more than five brigades across and out of Iraq in less than six months—and not jeopardize the mission?

Give up? As a frame of reference: Imagine the challenge of moving the Washington bureau of every media organization out of Washington, along with vehicles, computers, cameras, control rooms, printing presses and satellite trucks. And move all of these reporters and their equipment from here to Jacksonville where they’ll be loaded on ships. And at the same time, move in new reporters, editors, technicians, sound and camera operators and support staff—with all of their equipment and vehicles—from hundreds of miles away. Oh, and during this transition, your organization can’t miss a single press conference, congressional hearing or floor speech; you must continue to cover the President, his administration and all the federal agencies; and you must meet your deadline and file a story every day.

That would be a helluva challenge and would likely take months to accomplish. Now imagine having to do that while people are shooting at you and lobbing mortars into your building; and imagine having to drive while watching for and reacting to IEDs and snipers along the Beltway and I-95.

The total number of people involved would be equivalent to roughly one brigade. And the consequence of missing a deadline would be an angry editor—not dead soldiers and civilians.

Something to think about when people lay out their plans to move more than five brigades in just a few months.

He neglected to mention something else that would add to the difficulties of moving the Washington press corps to Florida. All the time we'd spend whining, bellyaching and questioning the move. That would add a few more weeks to the project, easily. Then add a few more for cleaning our desks.

And why did he have to move us out of Washington in his thought experiment? Why not move Congress?