The U.S. Military WON the war that Congress authorized to remove Saddam and destroy his military. Our troops did an outstanding job and there is no doubt that we won that war.
The second war in Iraq began to develop the day after Saddam fell with the riots and has been getting worse ever since. Our removal of the control exercised by Saddam was NOT replaced with a level of force that was able to prevent the factions that hate each other in Iraq from organizing and fighting for control of the country. In addition, we were unable to prevent foreign terrorists from entering Iraq after Saddam fell and setting up operations from which they are making the sectarian violence worse by attacks like the one on the Golden Mosque about a year ago.
Senator Reid is 100 % correct and just about every senior military leader has said we can not win the civil war in Iraq. Most of the generals said in the end the surge will not bring stability to Iraq only the concerted effort of the Iraqi people can end this civil war that rages in that country. Even if for a brief period the attacks in Baghdad are lower the attacks like we saw on Wednesday clearly demonstrate the underlying hate of the factions within Iraq and the foreign terrorists are not under control. We are not able to control the level of violence with 160,000 U.S. Troops even with the help of the Iraqi forces we have trained. When we leave, this Civil War will continue until the Iraqi people find a way to end the killing. It may be because one side destroys the other or the country splits into factions along the lines of the three religious factions. It is also possible that the fighting and death will get to a point when the vast majority of the Iraqi’s force an end to the fighting.
Our military won the war they were sent to Iraq to fight. The Commander-in-Chief allowed a second war to emerge that we are not staffed or equipped to fight. Thus the loss that Senator Reid talks about is the loss of the war caused by George W. Bush. No matter how long we remain in Iraq the basic hatred and fight to control Iraq will not be changed. That is why we have LOST this second war- The Civil War in Iraq! If we had followed the advice of our military leaders and followed the military planning with the 500,000 troops when Saddam fell the situation today might be very different. The reality is Bush did not listen to the military experts and turned his back on decades of military training and experience when he sent 150,000 troops when the military experts said we need more then 3 times number. What might have happened is speculation. The reality is that we can not win the Civil War in Iraq with 160,000 of our brave military.
It is time to accept we won the war Congress agreed to fight in Iraq and lost the war that Bush allowed to develop after Saddam and his army was defeated.