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Texpat

The US has built (paid for) far more than it ever destroyed in Iraq. Now Iraq has $60B in the bank and should/will begin to assume the lion's share of turning their country's economy around. Projected 7% this year. That's a lot better than most countries.

The US didn't install anyone as president. The Iraqis elected their leaders and that group is responsible for the way ahead, not the US. They've been in office now for more than two years and they're playing dumb. At some point in the very near future, the game's up and they'll have to go to work.

How many years of nurturing these dolts does it require before any shred of responsibility for the future of their country lies in their laps?

sabang

I hope you do not actually believe that Tex. It is laughable!

The US has not been able to deliver on it's glibly stated infrastructural promises, nowhere near. They have even admitted this.

Why do you think most of Iraq outside of the Kurdish north still only has sporadic electricity and running water? This was not the case before the invasion, five years ago. The average life expectancty of an Iraqi- which used to be the highest in the Arab world- is now amongst the lowest.

p.s- Things like the KBR/ Halliburton 'No Bid' contract construction of the worlds largest Embassy and three massive foreign military bases do Not count.

__________________
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

raycarey

Milkman

There are many skeptics about Iraq on many issues. Especially with security. I suppose the world will wait and see.

But everyday, it costs the US more and more money.

And this is theeee big question.

The US has already been there for 5 full years.

stroller

That is your (US) idea of how things should work out ,and as usual when superior invaders impose their system, it is the natives fault when it all doesn't work out as imagined.

Texpat

Liberators, Strolly, liberators.

The "war" only lasted a matter of months. The amount of damage pales in comparison to that done by Iraqis, in the five years since.

Iraq dismisses 1,300 after Basra battles

IHT
Today

BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government said Sunday that it had dismissed 1,300 soldiers and policemen for refusing to fight or performing badly during the offensive against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra last month.

Major General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said that 500 soldiers and 421 policemen had been fired in Basra, including 37 senior police officers up to the rank of brigadier general. Police officials said the remainder were fired in Kut, where fighting also spread.

"Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons," said Khalaf in Basra.

The dismissals were an implicit admission of failures during the Shiite-on-Shiite battles in the southern port that were widely criticized as poorly planned.

Even American officials who praised the Iraqi forces' progress in being able to move 6,600 reinforcements south to Basra so quickly conceded that they had not been fully consulted in advance.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/13/mideast/iraq.php

raycarey

the war is still going on...and the US military has been humiliated just like it was in vietnam--or perhaps worse this time. just because you want to pretend the war ended in 2003 doesn't make it so. real US military personnel (you know, the ones who didn't quit in the middle of a war) are getting killed everyday.

btw, again there is no comment from you on the article you posted.......

Norton

Not to mention many who were scared shitless they might get their butts shot off. So they've been dismissed. Wonder who's side these guys will show up on in the next little skirmish.

raycarey

surely it depends on who is paying the most.

what a mess.

stroller

I did not claim the damage is caused by the "war", I have been pointing out myself that the war was over years ago and this has been a troubled occupation.

You are again blaming the Iraqis for your government's miscalculation. There would not have been any of this damage "done by Iraqis" without the invasion and occupation, plain and simple.

Boon Mee

^
Yeah, well, Saddam & his WMD's are gone so it's all moot, eh?

raycarey

and those 800 US military personnel that die every year in iraq?

and that $12 billion per month?

moot, huh?

stroller

No, it's not moot, since there is an ugly attitude at work here and there's a lesson to be learned: "it's all the natives' fault when the policies of the occupiers don't work"
It's an attitude I thought died with the age of colonialism.

KID

and again YOU are forgetting that if IRAQ would have never invaded KUWAIT and abide by U.N. INSPECTORS RULES then NOBODY would be involved in this situation at all !!!

Hootad Binky

^ The inspectors never found anything: ask Hans Blix. Didn't realise the penalty for not cooperating fully with a UN group and American experts that can't find anything merits full-scale invasion. The US refuses to abide by Geneva Conventions and the World Court, does that mean someone should invade them?

And this just one instance after a sum total of 5 years of retraining the "new" Iraqi Army (after Bremmer dismissed the entire Iraqi Army years ago, putting thousands of armed men out of work and into the insurgency )

__________________
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. -Oscar Wilde

stroller

Have you read the report or the conclusions of the UN inspectors, kiddo?
Look it up what they had to say.

Pity some numbskulls still don't realise they've been duped.

KID

DOES NOT MATTER, The original blame still Lay's on IRAQ for invading KUWAIT

Even if Hans and his boy's never found what they were looking for it does not mean that they were not EVER there. with the way Saddam was forbidding entry to installations and refusing to cooperate with inspectors who is to say what was really going on in that country !!!


hell I can tell you I don't have a t.v. in my house as long as I only let you look in 1 room a visit !!! then when I finally do let you inspect the whole house would you be surprised to find that it had been moved to my neighbors????

wake up boy's, we all know what really happened don't we !!!

__________________
Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street for all the people to see

Hootad Binky

The first invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMDs, since Bush Sr. didn't look for any and none were used by Iraq in its invasion of Kuwait.

But that doesn't give me the right to invade your home, does it?

sabang

Well, no we don't.

Certainly, Saddams intransigence did not help the situation- if only because it gave the Hawks an ongoing excuse to exploit the uncertainty and make a case for invasion. The facts on the ground in Iraq have however demonstrably backed up the UN's story, not the Bush administrations. Cheney in particular went to great lengths to try and uncover any shred of evidence of WMD's left in Iraq during the lead up to the invasion, and failed.

Given that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is now a fait accompli, and the US in particular is mired there in an expensive and bloody mess of it's own making, speculation about the 'real' reasons for invasion is one thing, a sober assessment of the actual conduct and success of the whole operation another- and this does not have to involve speculation.

Focusing on the latter, there are a few pretty obvious points to be made-

- The financial cost of the invasion & occupation was totally, in fact incredibly, underestimated. The early cost estimates were less than 1% of the cost so far.

- The human cost also. I will leave others to speculate about the motives, but the Bush administrations position that any resistance would soon collapse, and the occupying forces would be greeted as Liberators proved to be patently false.

- Shock and Awe was a failure. Due to popular resistance and widespread violence, the Iraqi infrastructure destroyed during the invasion phase has not been able to be replaced in many cases. Thus you have much of the country still only receiving sporadic electricity and running water. The human misery thus caused has further contributed to the Resistance, and the exodus of critical talent from Iraq such as doctors.

- The decision to dismiss the Iraqi security forces was clearly a disaster. The security vaccuum thus created assisted the countries plunge into anarchy, and provided a ready made source of armed Resistance fighters.

- The amount of internecine violence unleashed by the removal of the central government was also totally underestimated by the Bush administration. There is a case to be made that they ignored, or underestimated, the advice of the US and UK Intelligence community in this regard. The internecine violence unleashed has proved to not just be Sunni vs. Shiite, but also competing factions within the Sunni's and Shiites.

When you add the experience of Vietnam to that of Iraq, and the Russians in Afghanistan, I think there is a clear lesson to be learnt that the public of a country, and it's political establishment, should be utterly sceptical of invading another sovereign nation that is not invading you, or your allies.

Milkman

Iraq asked the US if invading Kuwait would be a problem.

The US said, no problem. It's an "internal" Iraqi matter.

The Iraqi-Kuwait issue goes way back.