I wonder how many Americans can find Iraq on the map, or know that it is the size of California and has a population of 28 million? How many know that the main reason we are still fighting in Iraq for the fifth year is that when our valiant military overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney chose to ignore the advice of Gen. Eric Shinseki, who stated that 270,000 troops would be needed to secure Iraq, and these three "experts" scoffed, tried to regulate the borders and maintain order in a country that size with a force of just over 100,000.
Keep in mind that we have a two-pronged effort in Iraq - the first is to fight the insurgents and the second is to wait while the Iraqi government and its military and police forces become stable and can provide services and protection for Iraqi civilians. So how is that going?
Well, 18 benchmarks (accomplishments) were expected of the Iraqis. The White House has announced that they have met eight of them, although the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency of Congress, states they met only three. So whom do you believe - the spinmeisters at the White House or the nonpartisan GAO?
So the question has to be asked : How long must our military fight there while waiting for the Iraqis to be able to take charge? If the answer, which President Bush suggests, will be several years, then I think we should get out as gracefully as we can. Consider that we have to leave eventually, and there's no telling what will happen in Iraq then.
Richard J. Mundy, Las Vegas
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