My wife received this email from a relative. It was originally generated by a mid 80's United States Military Academy (USMA) grad who spent considerable time in Iraq, most recently at CentCom, who volunteered to go back after completing a full tour there. It gives a first hand perspective and insight that is unvarnished by media or those with a political agenda. I wanted to share it with this group to communicate the views and beliefs of someone with experience in a fairly high position in Iraq.
The best answer to the debate about when we'll "pull out" of Iraq ought to be "When we're done."
On the issue about whether we had enough troops: Gen Franks thought we had enough troops to win a war with Iraq. He was right, we won with fewer troops and fewer casualties and much quicker than the leftist media predicted. I guess that's why Tommy Franks was the boss, and not Peter Arnett. Gen Shinseki and Donald Rumsfeld duked it out before that point about the number of troops. Shinseki was wrong to go public against his boss (I think it was unprofessional). Rumsfeld was wrong to be so adamant. Now, Paul Bremer has come on board saying we didn't have enough troops to secure the country after we won the war. That's correct. Some of us told him that a year ago. That he chose to squelch it until now leads me to wonder why? The left wing politico-media types make it sound like President Bush planned every tactical move, and every manpower issue, down to individual soldiers, in a vacuum. That he's being charged with picking an unwinnable war is horse-hockey!&nbs p;Those of us in uniform (at the time) thought he did a great job of letting the military leaders make the call. The military leaders did their best, but they're not perfect. Hey, we're only human...
The troop strength argument begs a comparison of tactics, techniques and procedures with times past ... like Viet Nam. We've lost 1/10 of the people we lost in a comparable period in Viet Nam-fighting a similar war on insurgents. The big difference is that the insurgents in Iraq are loosely organized at best, and are basically mercenaries from several surrounding countries. Getting the Iraqis involved in protecting themselves is key to stopping the problem. And I do believe that if we leave Iraq without stabilizing things, two things will happen: 1) Iran, Syria, Turkey and perhaps Saudi Arabia will rush in to grab control of whatever they can, and 2) The terrorists we are currently fighting in the Mid East will be fighting us in New York, Washington, Chicago, etc as soon as we let up the pressure on their turf. People have the war IN Iraq mixed up with the war WITH Iraq.
We won the war WITH Iraq (W.W.I, as I like to call it). The Iraqis, for the most part love us for finally deposing Saddam Hussein and his evil regime. Unfortunately, true to form, Saddam freed over 100,000 felony criminals just prior to our victory. We're talking murderers, rapists and thieves, not political prisoners. He burned their criminal records to prevent us from taking action to return them to prison. Those guys account for a good bit of the terrorism going on in Iraq.
The Clerics want peace. They may disagree over representation in government, and specific religious technicalities, but they want peace. Islam is a religion of peace. That the liberal media has elevated Moqtada al Sadr to religious cleric status is farcical. The Iraqis call him "Moqday," a mocking comparison to Saddam's two sons Uday and Qusay. That his own father (a highly revered cleric, murdered by Saddam in 1998) disowned him for his violent behavior prior to being killed by Saddam in 1998 ought to tell you something. Al Sadr's army is nothing more than a band of thugs and mercenaries-most of which are being paid through Iran. However, as long as our media continues to give him credibility, he retains strength. He is a single lone terrorist with financial support and extensive media coverage. The media projects him as "typical" of all Iraqis and makes his antics the focal point of the so-called "news." There are a great many religions in Iraq. True it is 85% Muslim, but there are a variety of Christian religions, and Jewish faiths as well. They have practiced peaceful toleration for hundreds of years ... in spite of their differences ... until Saddam took power and started murdering Jews in weekly executions in the early 70s. Remember that he also went after the Kurds for decades, murdering a million of them-mostly Muslims, and that he also attacked the Shiites (the minority branch of the Muslim sect) in 1991. To say the Muslims are on the verge of Holy War is perhaps a western attempt to label some of the fighting going on there now.
The people becoming disillusioned with the Americans are largely the people in the public eye ... they have elections coming up. To win, one needs a platform. There's an obvious correlation between the two. You won't see any anti-American sentiments among the people who are attending school for the first time in years, or those who have food, water, electricity and jobs for the first time in decades. The anti-Americanism that you see is what the media show you ... and they stoke the flames of hatred pretty well to support their pre-fab stories. We saw reporters with cameras approach peaceful gatherings (remember when we were paying the unemployed army?) and ask very pointed questions, incite anger and hostility, and THEN turn on the cameras (and Iraqis love having their pictures taken, as I found out).
We all expected the violence to increase before the elections .. we talked about it a year ago. Now its happening, we're dealing with it, but the media is making it look like Waterloo!
The thing the world needs to know is that Iraq is a peace loving society, repressed by four decades of totalitarian dictatorship. They are largely happy with what we've helped them achieve. They are still hesitant to commit to full support because they've seen us pull out on them before, and they're getting very mixed messages from the media (they get CNN also) and from our wannabe political leaders. For them to make the full commitment to support us and support themselves in the war on terror, they need the assurance that we will not abandon them again!
Hope I didn't ramble too much... |
