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If Bush had gone to the UN and gotten a real inspection regime, and Saddam had snubbed us, I would have reluctantly supported war. I felt that sanctions were going to have to be put on Iraq indefinately and that due to that and the fact that innocents were the most common victims of the sanctions, I felt war might be the better option.
Yet that didn't happen, the weapons weren't there, the war has lasted longer than even the most pessamistic projections suggested were possible, and the cost has been insane.
But, I still thought staying in was necessary. We had seriously broken Iraq I felt we needed to fix it. I felt that giving Iraq the time to train a police force and army to both deal with the insurgency and respect human rights, might save them from distruction.
I no longer believe that is possible. The fiasco with the British and the Iraq police have convinced me that it is all over. It has been well over a year since we have heard mission accomplished and this is what the British, and remember their part of the country is the one which is running well, have wrought.
If the police are 'riddled with insurgents' as was reported on NPR in the wake of this incident, in the best run part of the country, just what are places like Faluga like by now? Sadly, it appears to be a total mess.
I have come to this conclusion in the full knowledge that the alternative is an Iraq which is at best in a three way civil war, and at worst an Islamic state allied with a nuclear armed Iran. I harbor no illusions that the UN or NATO will bail us or Iraq out of this mess. They would be insane to try to do so. But, all we are currently doing is delaying the inevitable. When we have to knock down jail walls to protect our troops from insurgents in the police, we really have lost the hearts and minds.
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