What did Operation Iraqi Freedom accomplish
By Atticus MorrisThe Guardsman
As Barack Obama announced the end of “major combat operations” in Iraq on Aug. 31, congressional Republican leaders, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, expressed concern that the president would attempt to assume credit for the war’s success. Which begs the question: With 2,722 official days of combat, what exactly has the U.S. accomplished in Iraq? In the president’s speech, he explained that the U.S. will maintain a continued presence of 50,000 troops in Iraq until at least the end of 2011 - hardly a decisive victory. The confusion about what was achieved stems in part from the disparity between the original justification for conflict and the revised one.Congress authorized the Iraq war under the pretense of preventing an allegedly imminent attack on the U.S. But the original objective of destroying Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was in retrospect, unattainable, because there never were any to destroy. Once this was clearly demonstrated, the objective suddenly had "always" been the liberation of the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein.Well, we did depose Hussein, but was it worth the price we paid and how much better are the Iraqi people for it?According to the latest Congressional Budget Office report, the monetary cost for Iraq is in excess of $700 billion. The price tag in blood equals 4,400 Americans dead and 31,700 wounded. “Wounded” in this war generally means limb loss and/or severe head trauma. And the U.S. has critically damaged its credibility, both morally and as a nation with the capacity to achieve what it sets out to do.As for how the Iraqi’s have fared, conservative estimates put the death toll at more than 100,000. An estimated 1.8 million have become refugees, and an additional 2.6 million have been displaced within Iraq. Violence has diminished significantly since 2007, but a wave of bombings on Aug. 30 of this year suggests it’s far from eradicated. The relative stability means access to electricity is much more reliable, but London-based economist and Iraq expert Ali al-Saffar estimates only 46 percent of the demand is currently being met.The much ballyhooed democracy that took seven and a half years to install - after an endless procession of essentially cosmetic elections - is just an assortment of bickering factions cobbled together with a flimsy constitution.The power vacuum created in the wake of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has significantly strengthened Iran’s influence in the region. So much so, that It’s really not that big of a stretch to say, as some already have, that the victor in the Iraq War was Iran. As evidence, consider that the U.S. eliminated Iran’s secular nemesis Hussein, empowered the long-repressed Shiite majority (Iran is primarily Shiite) and is drawing-down its presence in the region, leaving an Iraqi government that is now sympathetic to Tehran.And finally, the invasion and occupation of Iraq validated in the eyes of the Muslim world, much of the anti-west propaganda of organizations like al-Qaida. The United States has fallen neatly into the caricatured role of enemy to Islam. Obama made it clear that his speech, which focused mostly on the troops, Afghanistan and the U.S. economy, was not a “victory lap.” As the U.S. looks toward the future, it would do well to learn from mistakes made in Iraq.That the president declined to rehash the past is understandable, but the rhetorical tone characterizing the Afghanistan discourse is distressingly similar to that of Iraq, both in terms of its idealistic language and its ill-defined objectives. In other words, “here we go again.”With the myriad problems the U.S. is now facing, we as citizens should not only be asking questions, but demanding specific answers. Is the U.S. trying to capture and kill all enemies in Afghanistan, or just disperse them into Pakistan? Who exactly is the enemy in this campaign? Al-Qaida? The Taliban? Both? How do we plan to accurately gauge progress? By the number of elections the Afghanis have held?Sure we control Kabul, but Kabul has been conquered by many invading armies, from the British in the eighteenth century to the Soviets in the twentieth. Does controlling Kabul mean anything? The Afghanis have historically always fought guerrilla wars of attrition. How long is the U.S. prepared to stay there? Another 10 years? Another 20?
