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VI DAY

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Zip

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I do not believe 'we won', morally or tactically.

Why not? I strikes me that we did both. How can turning a nation with the worlds largest reserves of oil from a belligerent anti-western dictatorship into a pro-western democracy be seen as anything other than victory? If one looks at the situation in Iraq exactly two years ago, the US was not only on the verge of a humiliating defeat, but a civil or even regional war in the Middle East. We did, indeed, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Bush, Gen. David Petraeus, and the thousands of soldiers who risked their lives there have earned and deserve the term 'victory.' Today as VI Day sounds good to me.

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It wasn't my war, I never had the opportunity to go, so I won't step into the purely national debates of any of the countries that did pony up as to whether they should have gone or not. I will only say that had my country decided to participate I would have gone and willingly.

Saddam was the dictator that called wolf, with regard to the presence of WMD's, his continued violations of the ceasefire that ended Gulf War 1 and the resolutions of the United Nation.

He played that part for too long, got too many people with the power to do something about his continued bad behaviour antsy. He poked his proverbial thumb in the eye of the UK and USA one time too many and they, and others finally called him on his bluff.

When a megalomaniac dictator who has used poison gas on his own people continually claims to have it, or continually confounds the work of those who are trying to determine if he has it, sooner or later the fact that he did have it, has used it, and seems willing and able to use it again HAS to trump the usually sketchy heavily caveated quasi assertions of intelligence collection.

Lets play a little game. You are the GIC (Guy In Charge).

What are the facts...

He did have it in the past, he used it in the past, he stopped the IAEA from looking for it again and again. He continues to violate no fly zones and "paint" your aircraft with Radar.

What did the intelligence say? We don't think he has it. His army is for the most part intact. He continues to violate ceasefire and UN resolutions.

You decide.

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4,000+ American lives lost for the sake of others, for a war that could have been over in a matter of days, for a war that was totally unnecessary.

I think the idea that the Iraq war was totally unnecessary comes mainly from the view of hindsight. Viewed within the context of 9/11 and the unanimity of global intelligence agencies as to the stockpiles of WMD and Saddam's pursuit of nuclear capabilities, the US was justified in taking him out. Once we had done so, leaving was not an option, at least not a very good one. Had we left after ousting Saddam, God knows what would have filled the power vacuum. Al qaeda simply would have moved its operations from Afghanistan to Iraq and we would have had to go back in there anyway.

This is not to say that I support Bush's handling of the first few years of the war. It took the Democrats taking control of congress to get that blockhead to change from a strategy that was clearly not working. Had he done so sooner, many of those 4000+ American lives might have been spared. For that, he deserves whatever criticism he gets.

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Zip, Fletch, I don't want to get into a debate over the Iraq war and so I'll state my position clearer.

1) We did not win tactically: whether Saddam was a real threat or not, the manner in which the war has been, and continues to be carried out, is that of more a humanitarian mission in which violence has been used. If Saddam was a real threat, we would not have had a few nights of targeted bombing; we would have flattened Baghdad* and not stopped to 'reconstruct' as Washington was so keen to do from the beginning. It's been like this for 5 years: shoot some stuff, then give everyone hugs and aid. The problem is, that the troops are then in danger twice: once from the fight itself, and then again as they stay to reconstruct.

2) We did not win morally: Saddam was not the real threat, Iran has been and always was the real threat. For everything horrendous Iraq did, Iran should have been our first target. The act of attacking Iraq has diminished any moral claim we could make in attacking Iran if and when someone pulls their finger out.

Furthermore, Fletch, I agree with you 100% on the fact we turned Iraq into a modern democracy - if that is a good thing, I leave you to consider.

If you wish to know the reasoning behind my position, then it is very much in line with what Yaron Brook says here:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues...for-failure.asp

*I'm being hyperbolic

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4000 American lives were squandered by sending them into battle with one hand tied behind their backs. And they were one country over from the one that should have been crushed. Iran should have been that target, as has been stated here already. But I am sure I am preaching to the choir here, to borrow an enemy metaphor.

As far as I am concerned, the Iraq war was an unnecessarily long and messy clean-up job for a task that should have been completed in Gulf War I. Bush Sr. didn't finish the job and look at the cost. Saddam Hussein's regime should have been wiped out in 1991.

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