Was the Iraq War worth the costs in blood and treasure?

We haven’t left completely. While the combat guys are coming home, there are still about 50,000 guys still in Iraq (for training and support). We’ll see what happens once all of the training is done and all of our guys are home. I think hindsight is definitely 20/20. I think it was worth it in some ways but not in others. I think we went in for the wrong reasons and without a proper plan for the beginning, middle, and end of our time there. It’s a shame for so many people to have lost their lives, but I think we were able to help the Iraqi people in some ways as well.

Earlier this year, the Iraqi people were able to have an election. While there were some things that happened to try to prevent it (car bombs at voting sites), it managed to go off rather well and they were able to elect the 325 members of their council. That council (the Council of Representatives of Iraq) elect the Iraqi Prime Minister and President. I consider that to be a success. Helping them with these elections could help us in the long run (as far as US – Iraq relations go).

Another thing that people don’t hear about are things like our units donating supplies to the Iraqi orphanages. Our unit recently collected many different things (clothes, blankets, non-perishable food, etc) and shipped it over to our guys so they could give it to the orphanages. Things like that do make a difference.

I really wish they would have kept their eye on the ball and did all they could do to get Afghanistan settled down first. With Pakistan a nuke nation, it, to me anyway seemed way more important than ousting Sadaam.

Now it seems pretty questionable, in fact, rather undebatable that it was not a good idea.

However, something that really caught my attention is that about the same amount of people that gave their lives in Iraq die every year from accidents due to drunk drivers, now that’s sad (though perhaps off topic, nah, is off topic, sorry).

Another thing to note, is that it is rather unlikely that we’ll actually leave so soon, we have this tendency of leaving at least one base of operations in countries that we’ve gone into.

@Seaofclouds Thanks for your input. I’m sure among Americans, even the harshest opponents of the original invasion do not miss Saddam. Certainly most of the Iraqi people are glad to see his torture chambers shut down. I do applaud the (relatively) free and fair elections, but I am very concerned that they have not resulted in the formation of a government, and instead, all negotiations between the two parties who nearly split the winning vote have been broken off.

@woodcutter Amen to that.

@Winters Thanks. And it certainly is sad that we lose so many innocent lives to drunk driving each year. That is truly needless.

Ask the Chinese. They are the ones who paid for it (until we get around to paying them back… or not).

@hiphiphopflipflapflop Ha! Great point. I guess they wouldn’t be fronting use the money if they didn’t think what we planned to do with it worked in their best interest. My question then is, are China’s national interests the same as those of the USA?

As for what can happen when a debtor nation’s chief bankroller has a serious problem with the debtor’s foreign adventures, look back to the Suez Crisis (UK the debtor, US the bankroller in that instance). Obviously this didn’t take place with the Iraq War at all, so they must have wanted to keep buying U.S. treasuries more than they wanted to protest our actions there or in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the other ‘stans and/or our stance towards Iran.

As for whether Chinese and US national interests are the same, well, of course they are not, if you look at it “straight”. But we are politically addicted to debt spending and they are making like Scrooge McDuck with foreign reserves. At the same time, the Islamic world starts well within China’s current western frontiers. I’ve wondered if they secretly approve of us knocking heads in Central Asia as long as they don’t get directly involved and our strength is sapped in the process.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop The chinese have their own difficulties with Muslim dissidents inside their own borders. Letting us take the heat probably suits them quite fine.

No. Seriously, what exactly did we accomplish?
We hanged a second-world dictator.
The only clear victor, I think, is Iran. They’re the only ones who came out of this in a better position in the region.

I knew from the start the that US invasion of Iraq was misguided and doomed to accomplish little of lasting value. The soldiers have served with honour at the behest of an administration that lacked honour or even respect for the troops or the citizens whom they were elected to serve. Those who inherited this mess have struggled to disentangle the country from the whole mess.

@Mamradpivo You are quite right, toppling Saddam removed a major check on Iran’s expansionist plans. They had to be secretly cheering Bush on from the moment he first floated the idea.

@Dr_Lawrence That is how I view it as well. I’m not connected in any way to the intelligence community, but it was patently obvious to me that the war was being sold on what the Administration had to know was a bunch of lies and wild distortions.

We have a huge spy base for the CIA in the Green Zone, that about does it. The rest of it was not worth it, all it was, was the Cowboy President using the young men of the military as his personal Luca Brassi.