Iraq, Ten Years Later

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

As we arrive at the tenth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, several things are apparent today that were not so clear a decade ago—and a few things are actually less clear today than they were back then.

Among the things that have come into focus:

 

 

Iraq was broken long before March 19, 2003.

 

 

Those who say the U.S. “broke Iraq” and pushed it into failed-state status by intervening in 2003 fail to recognize that Iraq was a failed state long before Operation Iraqi Freedom. As the Hoover Institution’s Fouad Ajami has observed, when the coalition entered Iraq, they found “a country wrecked and poisoned.” Gen. Ray Odierno adds, “What I underestimated when I got there was the societal devastation that was occurring in Iraq—the fact that education really had stopped for about 20 years, the fact that investment had stopped, the fact that people were being brutalized.” In short, Iraq was not broken because outside powers intervened. Rather, outside powers intervened because Iraq was broken.

 

Iraq really was part of a wider war on terror.

[Draggingtree]

Front Page Magazine:

As we arrive at the tenth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, several things are apparent today that were not so clear a decade ago—and a few things are actually less clear today than they were back then.

Among the things that have come into focus:

 

 

Iraq was broken long before March 19, 2003.

 

 

Those who say the U.S. “broke Iraq” and pushed it into failed-state status by intervening in 2003 fail to recognize that Iraq was a failed state long before Operation Iraqi Freedom. As the Hoover Institution’s Fouad Ajami has observed, when the coalition entered Iraq, they found “a country wrecked and poisoned.” Gen. Ray Odierno adds, “What I underestimated when I got there was the societal devastation that was occurring in Iraq—the fact that education really had stopped for about 20 years, the fact that investment had stopped, the fact that people were being brutalized.” In short, Iraq was not broken because outside powers intervened. Rather, outside powers intervened because Iraq was broken.

 

Iraq really was part of a wider war on terror.

news this morning 56 people killed IED sooner or later you would think the would run out of people