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Originally Posted by Mazer
Believe what you want. Victory in Iraq has already been achieved, now it's simply a matter of keeping the peace. Really, calling all this the 'War on Terror' was an unfortunate mistake on the administration's part. Wars must come to an end, but defeating terrorism is a continuing process. The war with Iraq wasn't the war on terror, it was only one step in the process.
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'victory" is a bit of a stretch, no? certainly you can say "mission accomplished" (that is, using the
original mission objectives - get Saddam and the WMD's that weren't there). but victory for whom? not for US interests - we created a new generation of terrorists, weakened our military, made ourselves despised throughout the world, and put Iraq in bed with Iran. victory for the iraqis? they don't seem to share that sentiment - check this interview with iraq's first prime minister Iyad Allawi:
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LONDON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Abuse of human rights in Iraq is as bad now as it was under Saddam Hussein, if not worse, former prime minister Iyad Allawi said in an interview published on Sunday.
"People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse. It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told British newspaper The Observer.
"People are remembering the days of Saddam," said Allawi, a secular Shi'ite and former Baathist who is standing in elections scheduled for Dec. 15. "These are the precise reasons why we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same things.
"We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated," said Allawi in an apparent reference to the discovery of a bunker at the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry where 170 men were held prisoner, beaten, half-starved and in some cases tortured.
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hmm -
human rights abuses as bad or worse now than under Saddam. that's some victory.
but it will be necessary for the administration to declare victory to begin withdrawing troops and it will be necessary for the hard-core Bush apologists to repeat it in order to save face.