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http://www.freep.com/news/nw/war18e_20041018.htmIraq options: Stay, add troops or leave
Next U.S. president faces bleak choices in where to go from here
October 18, 2004
BY KEN DILANIAN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- After almost 19 months of combat, nearly 1,100 U.S. troops dead and $119 billion spent, the central question about Iraq isn't whether it will become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East but whether the United States can prevent it from becoming a black hole of instability.
The answer may depend on whether Americans are willing to stomach what many military analysts say could be a guerrilla war for years to come.
That's true no matter who wins the presidency in November and whether or not an Iraqi election takes place in January, a cross-section of foreign policy experts said.
Iraq's increasingly lethal insurgency has stymied reconstruction and turned large swaths of the country into no-go zones for U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi forces. No major power has hinted that it's willing to send more troops. Germany has ruled that out, and two members of the U.S.-led coalition, Italy and Poland, have talked of withdrawing their soldiers, though neither has yet decided to do so.
Little prospect of a decisive military victory and even less chance of recruiting significant international help leave the next president with the same unpleasant options:
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