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    October 24, 2011

Soldiers, Pundits Debate Whether Iraq War Was Worth It

   Cecily Hilleary
   A northern Iraqi woman sits in front of her house with her four
   children, in the bordertown of Chamchamal, Iraq, March 30, 2003.
   Writing on wall reads: "This house is for sale."
   Photo: AP
   A northern Iraqi woman sits in front of her house with her four
   children, in the bordertown of Chamchamal, Iraq, March 30, 2003.
   Writing on wall reads: "This house is for sale."

   Of all the campaign promises U.S. President Barack Obama made, his
   pledge to pull troops out of Iraq is among the most memorable. Last
   Friday, Obama made good on that pledge, but not necessarily by choice.
   For months, Shi'a Muslim leader Muqtada al-Sadr had been [1]warning
   U.S. troops to get out of Iraq or face '[2]resistance.'

   US Marines of the 1st Division walk to a briefing prior to a mission
   outside Fallujah, Iraq, November 1, 2004.

AP

   US Marines of the 1st Division walk to a briefing prior to a mission
   outside Fallujah, Iraq, November 1, 2004.

   Al-Sadr's anti-Western movement enjoys a strong following, and many
   believe that pressure from Sadrists is what drove Iraqi Prime Minister
   Nouri al-Maliki to disallow any further U.S. military presence in Iraq.
   By New Year's Day, 2012, an approximate 41,000 U.S. troops currently in
   Iraq will have returned home. They, along with observers across the
   globe, will likely be scratching their heads for years, asking whether
   the invasion of Iraq and ensuing conflict were worth their $800 billion
   price tag, the loss of more than [3]4,400 U.S. troops and the deaths of
   as many as [4]112,000 Iraqis.

   In a September 20 article in [5]Foreign Policy, Peter Van Buren, State
   Department Foreign Service Officer and author of [6]We Meant Well: How
   I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People,
   argued that things do not look well for Iraq, at least in the short
   term. There has been, in his words, 'no resolution to the Arab-Kurd
   issue, no resolution to the Sunni-Shia issue, no significant growth in
   the oil industry, a weakened U.S. presence more interested in a Middle
   East land base and profitable arm sales than internal affairs, and an
   increasingly influential Iran seeking a proxy battleground against the
   United States and a nicely weak buffer state on its formerly
   troublesome western border.'
   Michael Rubin

Courtesy - AEI

   Michael Rubin

   [7]Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the [8]American Enterprise
   Institute (AEI) and senior lecturer at the [9]Naval Postgraduate School
   takes issue with such grim assessments. 'The Iraqis, for the first
   time, really had a shot at freedom,' Rubin said, 'and while Iraq today
   isn't perfect, for the vast majority of Iraqis, life is much better
   than what it was under Saddam.'

   Rubin points to the same issues - Kurds, religious sectarianism, Iran's
   looming influence - were not resolved during Saddam Hussein's regime.
   'The issue that many people forget is that Saddam Hussein didn't bring
   stability. Indeed the Kurdish Civil War started in 1961, and what we
   learned after Saddam's fall was that the Republican Guard may have
   controlled the streets in southern Iraq during the day, they didn't
   control things at night.'

   In short, Rubin says, the status quo in Iraq was falling apart. 'Too
   many people in hindsight will look at the issue as a choice to either
   go to war and unseat Saddam, or simply to have stability and sanctions.
   The sanctions were falling apart, and what all of Saddam Hussein's
   doctrines show, he had every intention of reconstituting the worst
   aspects of his force and his capabilities, as soon as the sanctions
   collapsed.'

   The scholar says President Bush had two choices: 'Either to unseat
   Saddam or see him re-empowered to the fullest. I do think that most
   people in the region are glad he made the former choice, even if they
   disagree with how the war was conducted.'

   As for the troop pullout, Rubin is among those who have felt strongly
   that the U.S. should retain a military presence in Iraq. He says he
   would have preferred a lasting military presence in Iraq, 'as long it
   takes to fill the vacuum, as long as it takes to bring stability.'

   Karen Kwiatkowski

Courtesy - 'Karen Kwiatkowski for Congress'

   Karen Kwiatkowski

   Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D, is a retired United States Air Force
   lieutenant colonel, who for four years prior to her retirement in 2003
   worked in the Pentagon'sNear East South Asia Policy Office (NESA).
   While there, she wrote a series of articles accusing neoconservatives
   and other interest groups of kidnapping U.S. Middle East policy. She
   retired from the Air Force a year later; today she teaches, writes
   about defense issues and is running for Congress. She is as outspoken
   now as she was a decade ago.

   'It's pretty sad, really,' she said, 'that almost ten years have gone
   by since stories were told to justify the invasion of Iraq, a country
   which was very weak militarily, very weak economically, that had been
   suffering under sanctions that we enforced for many years, over a dozen
   years, and had no air force, had no navy, had nothing to do with 9/11,