Victory in Iraq By Scott Allen
The Bear on Aug 14 2008 at 8:30 am | Filed under: Iraq
Guys, the fat lady is singing. We had only 6 combat deaths (due to hostile action) in Iraq in July. Only 1 since the 15th. This compares to 1 or more per day for most of our time there.
The Iraqi army is taking over, and a reasonably democratic government is settling in. They’ll continue to need our logistics, communication, and air support for a few years but even that will phase out.
Our “end state” is no Saddam threatening neighbors and No Safe Havens for terrorists (and there were plenty there — Abu Nidal, the group Ansar Al Islam, and many guys who took on the Al Qaeda “brand” who were already there after getting kicked out of their native countries for extremism. Violence will continue, but of a sort and on a scale similar to that in Israel. That’s about as good as it gets in the Middle East.
I am grateful for your faith in our country despite the naysayers (including many conservatives who gave up in 2006/07). We couldn’t continue sanctions and the No Fly Zone over Iraq forever, and after Saddam kicked out the inspectors in 1998 it was time for us to put up or shut up. That is, either have him live up the the Desert Storm treaty, or to admit it was a joke and walk away.
After 9/11 the public could see that there are people who really want to kill thousands. Many of these people were protected by Saddam, and he personally had killed millions in 2 wars, slaughter of Kurds (using poison gas — a WMD — against them and Iran), and one-by-one killing of political opponents. Torture was commonplace, rape a tool of state terror.
Liberals always push for treaties, like they’re some big accomplishment, but never care to enforce them if they’re broken. So they’re largely a joke and if it hadn’t been for 9/11 Saddam would probably still be in power. You may recall he suddenly “invited” the inspectors back after an absence of 4 years. But behind the scenes was still paying off “global citizens” and supposed “allies” with what we now know as the Oil For Food scandal (where kickbacks went to those who opposed the U.S.).
President Bush had to decide whether to ignore all this junk and stick with the Bill Clinton “law enforcement” method of punishing only after-the-fact of a crime or to act preemptively to make sure there were No Safe Havens for terrorists. Afghanistan and Iraq followed and I agreed wholeheartedly, both personally and professionally, with their conduct. The enemy always adapts and hindsight is 20/20, but I believe the war has been executed well all around.
Further, I’ve always said Iraq is the easier nut to crack. They have a defective culture, but must at least go-along-to-get-along to share the oil, and due to the topography. Afghanistan, in contrast, is much more a concept than a country with no real unifying factor. It’s important that we professionalize their army, but there will always be Taliban-like holdouts in the mountains there. As long as we don’t give them breathing space to plan like they did for 8 years or more during Clinton (nice cover up attempt at the National Archives, Sandy Burglar/Berger, it’ll be neat when the documents you tried to hide/destroy are declassified and we know what they said).
Preemption versus Law Enforcement is not an either/or proposition. It’s a compare/contrast, the two are different but work together. Iraq was a case of both. We preempted the festering in Afghanistan and Iraq and now can handle law enforcement with the cooperation of friendly, or at least neutral, governments. State sponsors of terror are now much fewer and more frightened. Iran, Syria and the Palestinian territories are now the last exporters of terror. Since we used the big stick, successfully, on Iraq they are much more likely to stick with screwing up their own lives instead of messing with America. This is a reason for cheer.
Sobered substantially by the loss of lives, both American and foreign, in operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
I thank God for His help in opposing this evil.
Sincerely,
Scott T. Allen, LtCol, USMC (Ret.)
SideBear: Scott is a family friend whom we have known since his days in high school. He served an extended term in Iraq before his retirement last fall.
Related
U.S. official: Iraqis told me WMDs sent to Syria
A former American overseer of Iraqi prisons says several dozen inmates who were members of Saddam Hussein’s military and intelligence forces boasted of helping transport weapons of mass destruction to Syria and Lebanon in the three months prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Don Bordenkircher – who served two years as national director of prison and jail operations in Iraq– told WND that about 40 prisoners he spoke with “boasted of being involved in the transport of WMD warheads to Syria.”
A smaller number of prisoners, he said, claimed “they knew the locations of the missile hulls buried in Iraq.”
Some of the inmates, Bordenkircher said, “wanted to trade their information for a release from prison and were amenable to showing the locations.”
The prisoners were members of the Iraqi military or civilians assigned to the Iraqi military, often stationed at munitions facilities, according to Bordenkircher. He said he was told the WMDs were shipped by truck into Syria, and some ended up in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
The Surge Has Been a Success
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