iraq has a population of about 25 million and god knows how many armed groups who would just love to be in charge....
remember what happened in lebanon (with a populaton of 3.5 million)? you remember the pictures of armed terrorists driving through residential areas and shooting anything that moved?
i suggest you get used to the idea that US troops ARE in iraq, and CANNOT just walk away because sadaam is no longer in power...
The cheering got stuck in the throat. In American's as well as Iraqi's.
The evaluation can only be one: Failure!
Cities on fire all over the country. Bunches of corps on both sides and foreigners who are kidnapped.
The one year celebration could have been better.
The question must be asked: Was it worth the price?
The answer may differ depending on who is to answer the question.
The positive parts of it are as follow:
The tyrant Saddam Hussein is gone.
Freedom for the Iraqis to say what they want.
Political prisoners freed.
46 out of 55 suspected war criminals are caught.
The negative parts are:
At least 10,000 dead Iraqis, many of them civilians.
Over 600 American soldiers and soldiers from other countries are dead.
Thousands of people on both sides are marked for life.
There is an occupation by foreign countries.
The cost ? Over $100 billion
How many victims is the removal of a tyrant worth? A thousand? Ten thousands? A hundred thousands?
The answers may be very individual but the facts remain?
What do the parents of the three year old children say about the fact that their sons and daughters got American bullets in their heads during last weekend?s uproar in Sadr City, the suburb of Baghdad? What do the wives and girlfriends of the American guards that were shot and cut up by a crowd out of control say?
To them the war is not about numbers. How do we measure our happiness about the fact that Saddam is long gone, taking into account their grief?
Where the statue of Saddam was torn down a year ago, are pictures of the Shiite priest Muqtada Sadr. No pictures of the ?liberators? Bush and Blair. Neither Iraqis nor Americans thought about replacing Saddam with an Islamic totalitarian system like the one in Iran. Even so, the impression today is that anything may happen. Nobody has control!
The scenes of happiness that we saw a year ago were authentic in one single way; Saddam was gone! But the Iraqi people seemed to fear the future?
The anarchy spread immediately when the Americans looked at the lootings passively.
Since then things have gotten worse. Many Iraqis have changed from ?not willing to cooperate? to ?violent resistance?.
Even so there is a quiet majority who only want calm and security independently of who is in power. And even so, nobody dares showing their sympathy for the USA, if that exist?
The worst part is probably that the war was ?unnecessarily?. Iraq didn?t have any WMD! There weren?t any international terrorists! Not until Bush invited them?
So many serious mistakes. Such a bad research. Such ignorance for human lives.
One year is not much after a dictatorship of 35 years. It usually takes about 10 years to establish normality.
Even so, it must be something wrong about an occupation when the violence and the chaos are worse one year later?
Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic