Quote Originally Posted by Ronin
wait....I´m confused....

I thought that the Iraq war had ended already....

CNN Link

Ronin, you are of course absolutely correct - the war for Iraq ended that day on the deck of an ACC with the banner "Mission Accomplished" (initially blamed on the seamen). But the "war on terror" (sounds like a b-movie) continued.

There in lies part of the problem. The Occupation of Iraq, doesn't sound nearly as justifiable (or sexy) as the "War in Iraq". Ergo, using a syntactic emotion generating model - war beats out occupation by a coutry mile. Now we could use "Police Action", but that didn't go over well in the '50s - so would fall flat today as well. Also, Bush really wants to be known as a wartime prez - wouldn't want to disappoint him (plus he gets to choose the terms).

Things in general would be simpler if we called this spade what it is - an occupation. But, it is easier to type "war" than the other - and it's sexier, so the press will go along calling it what it is not. We won the war in 2003 - we are losing the military occupation, the nation building, the securing of a region, and the retraining of an independant Iraqi security force.

Fact is we have trained more "insurgents" and terrorists" than dedicated forces that identify with the (a) nation of Iraq. Try finding out the desertion lists - I've read where 30-50% are gone (after training) in the first 30-90 days. After that it tapers down - but, in some instances up to 90% of the original are either gone or opted out for some reason.
End rant.

Good article, btw, Lemur.

There is no easy way out - and as the one General pointed out, an orderly withdrawl in the face of the enemy is every commanding officers nightmare.

As it said, a thousand scenarios - and know one can predict which one is the most probable.
One thing is for certain, the longer we remain in the center of this civil war - the higher the toll on American lives (now at 3,333 dead and 10 times that wounded). That is the only thing we know for certain.