Dax, a good military plan takes all envisioned contingencies into account. In its arrogance, the Bush administration never had a basic plan, let alone sub-plans to cover contingencies.

Saddam is dead according to the reports I've seen. What's wrong with that? Iraq has been ridded of it's WMD's. What's wrong with that? The oil companies have access to highly profitable oil. What's wrong with that? The operation of private armies has been tested and presumably found to be functional. What's wrong with that? The powers of the US president in war time have been shown to be absolute. What's wrong with that? Any group that opposes big-business profit making can be classified as 'terrorists' and therefore 'the bad guys'. What's wrong with that?

Maybe I don't understand the question. Maybe I don't know what was suppose to go right.

What's wrong with it is the more than four thousand dead and tens of thousands of crippled Americans whose job it was to get these things done so the President could declare "mission accomplished" and be regarded by history as a great war President.

Aside from the totality of the stupidity and arrogance of invading Iraq, that's what's wrong with it.

And yet despite all the doom and gloom the continuing reports out of Iraq show that WE have the upper hand in the situation. Go figure huh?
_________________________________
George Bush's America: Terror attack free since 9/12.

I don't believe this was or is the purpose of the Iraq invasion and occupation. From a tactical standpoint, I can agree with what went wrong in Iraq in regards to losses and failures. But when a president states his loyalties are to 'Faith, Family, and thirdly country' I don't know that being regarded by history as a great war president is or was the strategic purpose. Perhaps, history will show what went wrong in Iraq is why this president is not remembered as a great war president. History may even show great wars fought to protect freedom was once a quaint idea.

Hello Lizbeth:

A larger Kurdistan would mean Syria and Iran giving up land to the sell outs,and I just don't see this happening,in fact I actually expect some stray bombs in the event of a war with Israel/America to hit Kurdish areas of Iraq.Why did England not give the Kurds their homeland as promised,I mean England believes in a sense of fair play so what happened?

My mate uncle Ray:

America after 5 years has the upper hand in a war that they were expected to win in 6 weeks and you are happy.America could have had the upper hand in Iraq from day one if it wanted to,but it did not want to.All thinking and aware people know today what America is upto,America is paving the way for a new type of rule all over the world.

When I started this topic we were discussing the mistakes of WW2 on another forum. Mistakes are part of all wars and they did not stop Chuchill and FDR being regarded as great wartime leaders.However we should at least learn from these mistakes.

As alkready stated the British Government betray the Kurds in WW1. They in fact betrayed all the arabs despite Lawrence of Arabia promises they would be rewarded for fighting for Britain. Lawrence resign in disgust from Versails Peace conference because he felt the Arabs were being betrayed.

Sometimes what seems mistakes are just political expediency. However often decisions made in the short term have long term consquences. Most of the troubles in the Middle East today can be traced to the British government betrayal of the Arabs. If the borders had been settled in accordance with their population distribution most the problems of the Middle East today would not exist.Also the anti Western feeling and militant Islam can be traced to this betrayal and the granting of a homeland in the Middle East to the Jews.

What we have to be careful in Iraq is that we do not leave a further legacy of hatred. We should decide whether we want a strong Central government or a lose federation of the three groups. Unless we draw up realistic borders we will fail again.

Ray says we are winning. Certainly the surge at long last made some of the cities safer. Yet this was due to an increase in troops. Yet all parties expect the Western troop numbers to fall. What will happen then. If we have lot left behind a stable,strong government we will have left behind a civil war blamed on the West.

Cass, the borders were extablished by the English after WWI, as Aus said above. The English were most interested in oil to fuel its Navy. You're English, what do your history books say were the reasons the English had for the boundaries they set following the Great War?

All I can say for sure, is that Germany, prior to the war, courted the Ottoman Empire to the extent that the Empire fought on Germany's side. Losing the war meant that the Ottoman Empire was broken up into various states. The Kurds lived, primarily, in the mountains of northern modern Iraq--or the mountains of southern Turkey. The area populated primarily by the Kurds had no value for Britain, so Britain drew a boundary that put Kurdistan in Iraq. No one is suggesting that modern Syria, Iraq or Iran give up land to the Kurds in order to establish Kurdistan. I think what the Kurds want is similar to the sort of relationship China has with Taiwan. but I could be wrong.

Cass, what is America up to and what sort of international rule does America want? I'm curious to know what people outside of the US think.

And I'm saying had Bush listened to the Pentagon and the ENDLESS amounts of advice that he completely disregarded thanks to his Sec. of Def., we very well could have suffered half the casualties that we have and also been out of that country a few years ago.

But no. He followed Rumsfeld down a dark rabbit hole that stuck us in the longest war we've ever been in, creating massive amounts of American casualties and killing countless of Iraqi's.

Yeah, Ray, this war has gone great.

Oh yeah, violence in Afghanistan is at it's highest level since we disposed of the Taliban.

It speaks wonders of Bush's foreign policy.