Monday, March 8, 2010

The Iraq War: Time To End The United States Presence

This month will start the eighth year of war in Iraq and the U.S. presence there. Six years and nine months after President Bush announced "mission accomplished." We are following a schedule to have all combat troops out of Iraq by this summer and all U.S. personnel out by the end of 2011. The wars end would come eight years and nine months after the invasion if that schedule is maintained.

That schedule should be shortened and all Americans should be brought home this year and the sooner the better. The Iraq government held its elections this week end and every American general who has been questioned on TV this weekend still say school is out on what will actually take place after the elections are all over. In other words seven years later we are still in the dark as we were the day of the invasion when many so called hawks in the Bush administration said the war would be a cake walk. The problem fell to the boots on the ground, while the hawks stayed home.

The various factions in Iraq and their neighbors will decide what kind of country Iraq will be, with or without our presence. The people in Iraq who want to cause trouble can do so anytime they please and proved that during the week before the elections with many bombings and killings. They have that capabilities regardless if our troops are there or not.

The war has taken an awesome toll on our men and women in uniform who have been deployed multiple times, over 4300 American deaths, over 30,000 Americans wounded and billions of dollars. Those in Iraq who are still performing terror acts maintain the ability to still kill Americans there even though they have been withdrawn from the cities. One more American casualty in Iraq is too much. 2011 is a long, long way off. Our troops and personnel should be brought home this year.

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