WHY NOT START AN OFFICE POOL?

The Army’s 3rd Infantry Division has received conflicting messages of late, but a Pentagon official insisted Tuesday that the plan is to have everyone home from Iraq by September.

The soldiers instrumental in tackling Baghdad, some of whom have been in the region for nearly a year, have ridden an emotional roller coaster of late wondering when they’ll be coming home.

“Today, it’s planned for September,” said Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita.

“What I’m telling you, what the combatant commander and the secretary have said is that division, right now, the intent remains to have that division home by September,” Di Rita said.

Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, commander of the Fort Stewart, Ga., division, is not as optimistic.

The units have been ordered to stay “due to the uncertainty of the situation in Iraq and the recent increase in attacks on the coalition forces,” Blount said Monday in an e-mail message to Army spouses that was obtained by Stars and Stripes. Blount said in the e-mail message that his “best guess is 60-120 days.”

They'll be comin' round the mountain when they come...