We could have won this thing outright in about 2 years, maybe less, had our guys not been forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. I blame that directly on GWB.
But nobody in the White House gets this. And I mean nobody.
As CIC, GWB gets the blame. But if you think this war was winnable 2 years ago, you have been watching too many TV shows where it’s all neatly wrapped up at the end.
We are fighting foes that think and adapt, not predictable TV characters. We are following textbook counterinsurgency strategy rather than just razing the place. The latter would just make things worse.
Have a little patience. It has been a remarkably successful war in terms of limited US casualities and limited structural damage to a society that was rotten to the core. If the weak sisters do not prevail, Iraq will be a US ally for generations to come.
GEN Shinseki told Rumsfeld that we needed between 400,000 to 600,000 troops to secure Iraq before the invasion. Rumsfeld told him that with modern technology we need only 250,000 troops. GEN Shinseki disagree, Rumsfeld fired him and any general that would not agree with his lower numbers. Guess Shinseki was right.
No disrespect intended, but I'm not buying that. We have been fighting a war in two tiny nations, sustaining minimal deaths relative to all other wars in this nation's history. All of this is happening in the context of a much larger strategic theater that includes the entire middle east, as well as defeating the public thinking and propaganda of Old Europe and liberals in the USA. On top of that, we have protected the homeland from further attacks.
My point is that the area of military fighting is in a small geographic area of the real war and has allowed us to identify our real enemies geopolitically.
Get off the administration's back. We have a great economy and we feel generally safe. Can the man get no credit at all?