Preferably people w/ military knowledge: How long do you think this war with Iraq will last?

Question

My fiance's in the military and believes 4 years at the least.

Answer 1

That sounds about right. You all know we are still in Afganistan right? We are also still in Kosovo. Did you know that? I don't hear any news from that any more. Except through our military chanells.
It takes time to do it right, train their soldiers and police. We have built power plants and water facilities. These facilities were not bombed by us. We made darn sure we kept the infrastructure intact. We gave back what Saddam took away with his 30+ palaces and grand life style for his people the Sunnis (who aren't too happy they don't have a friend running the country anymore). I'm not talking about all the Sunnis though.
The big thing is we have to make sure the Government of Iraq has a good enough security force to make Iraq safe and secure. Then we'll leave.
The war WITH Iraq was over in spring of 2003. We are fighting insurgants and terrorists now.

Answer 2

This war will last about another year or so. But most people dont know this but we are not at war with only iraq it is called the (War on terrist) The United States Military are all over the world...
Senior Airman
John

Answer 3

Smart money says let the star in charge say when to leave. Politics prevented wwII from ending right-- Patton wanted Russia, would have saved us a lot of trouble. Korea was forced to end by the U.N. VietNam was ended way too early by political ignorence.Gulf war one was stopped by a democrat senate before george Sr. got hussane. We must not make the same mistake here. It needs to be run until Iraq is stabalized.. We do need to get our boys out of many places- germany, france, italy.. One lesson we have not learned from any of our wars is: never fight a war on allied territory.. wwII should've been in germany, italy and Japan- not france. Korea should've been in north K. .. VietNam in Hanoi and Beigein(china). Iraq should be being fought in iran and saudi arabia.. and we should have gone in with our biggest guns, and hottest bombs and killed until the enemies utterly surrendered, or untill there was no one to surrender. If we had fought Korea like we meant to win big; VietNam would not have happened because China would be totally our territory. Sadam would never have had a chance and we would have been in peace the past 50 years..

Answer 4

The war in Iraq will last until a tree hugging liberal gets into office so probably two more years. In my opinion, we will at least have one base in Iraq forever, kind of like South Korea. Chances are we will have multiple bases there and it will be considered a hardship tour to go there and soldiers will be put on 1 year tours there just like Korea.

Answer 5

Well, the war with Iraq is over. But the Global war on terror will go on for a long time. I think we will start to reduce our forces there in the next 10 years, but we will have a presence there for many, many years beyond that. I don't think we will be out of there completely in our lifetime.

Answer 6

Hard to say. We are not there to accomplish an objective thats even slightly in our control. The official reason to be there as far as I can fathom is until Iraq has a stable Government. There are not many stable governments in that region. Establishing a stable Gov in Iraq with peacefull means and with the fulll support of the population would not be easy. We neither have a peacefull means nor full support of the population.

A second barrier is that Iraq is an artificial nation. Kurds in the North, Sunni and Shite. None of them get along. Fear of one tyrant or another gave them a common person to hate. Free of that fear and hatred now they can turn to age old fueds. The insurgents have really played this up by intentionally attacking sensitive targets for Shites and by executing Sunni while pretending to be Shite officals. This compounds the already existing tensions and murders that have happened between the various factions. Just to add more spice ot this the Sunni were strong backers of Saddam who murdered tens of thousands of Kurds and Shites for the sin of being Kurd or Shite. Iran next door which is Shite is I am sure doing it's thing to help rid Iraq of Sunni and Kurd. Jordan which is Sunni is likewise fighting a shadow war to help thier Sunni bretheren. Both Jordan and Iran see possible fiscal gains in meddling in Iraq.

Then you have the terrorists. Who seem to love shooting themselves in the foot in Iraq. Thus Iraq being the only Arab nation to actually protest against terrorism. The terrorists have murdered thousands of Iraqi's. In fact they have probably now killed more Iraqis than the US invasion did. The stated goal of the terrorists is to destabalize the Gov. The less stable the Gov is the less services the people get and the worse the economy. The worse things are the less happy people are, the less happy the more likely they'll buy terrorist propoganda. Terrorism thrives on unhappyness. It is a ghoul that preys on the worst in human nature. So they are using all methods they can think of to prevent Iraq from having a stable Gov.

Then you have US lack of understanding about Arab culture. We have this obsessive idea that what works for us is right for everybody else and the arrogance to attempt to inflict it on anybody we come in contact with. I personally love America, however few Arabs would find American society thier ideal of how society should be. So we are working against ourselves and the culture in many ways.

US military tactics are sometimes too soft, sometimes too harsh. You want a recipe to create ill will and you have it with our ineffectiveness to catch those shooting at our troops and setting off IEDs combined with our kicking in doors and terrorizing anybody in the area. Given how few insurgents we've caught kicking in doors and the shock effect of the tactic I think we would learn that it's ineffective and breeding ill will. How would YOU like having your door kicked in? Why not try knocking first? We are not catching the insurgent either way. Instead I suggest posting snipers near our ocnvoy routes. We see a guy planting an IED shoot the ba$tard right there. After a dozen dead insurgents I think we'd see a whole lot less of those criters out there. Of course they'd learn to watch for snipers and might start targeting snipers instead of convoys, however war is a fluid event. You cannot impose tactics on the situation and expect to win. You have to adapt tactics to the situation to win. So if they target the snipers compensate and go after the method they use to attack the snipers.

So we are chasing our own tails right now in Iraq. We are fighting Desert Storm in conditions that do not resemble Dessert storm at all. Nor is Iraq like Viet Nam. Our experience there is almost worthless. This is a whole new situation and until we try new tactics we are doomed to repeat the failures of the past to the loss of all involved. Nor is pulling our troops right now even a wise idea. You might as well urinate on the graves of those we've lost and randomly shoot millions of Americans and Europeans if we just cut and run in Iraq right now. Thats exactly what leaving Iraq without an honorble exit will do. Second we are tieing up and exhausting quite a bit of terrorist resources in Iraq. We are also creating a situation where they are increasingly targeting other Islamics. The best way to rid the world of Arab terrorists is for Arabs to taste Terrorism first hand.

So we are there for years and years and years until we gain some intelligent use of our military. We have made blunder after blunder there. Worse we don't even realize we are making mistakes. We celibrate minor achievements like they are heroics without realizing that we are undoing those gains withour our own actions.

Answer 7

Not really sure but, I think the military will wind up keeping troops there like they did in Korea and Germany

and dont forget we are soon to be at odds with north korea and iran so... it will be a world war soon enough

tell him to get out... i did

Answer 8

I was in the military from 80 to 83 from what I seen back then,Who Knows?

Answer 9

Its going to continue for decades? The cost in lives to foreign armies serving there will far exceed the casualty figure of Vietnam. It's not Vietnam, its totally unrelated to Vietnam, in no way whatsoever does it compare to Vietnam. This is a war for keeps. Its the Muslims war. It'll just go on and on and on! No amount of assassination, murder, torture, mutilation, as daily and indiscriminately applied against Arab or Foreign Nationals by the extreme clerical elements of Islam will ever be curtailed as long as one foreign foot walks its land or anyone Arab stands forth to challenge the clerics. The western world is totally out of balance in measuring up to the reality of fundamental Islamic Iraq extremists.

It's Islam at its extreme! Western Morales, standards, values, practises, custom and culture and countless other aspects of western life are indoctrinated into Muslim minds as totally alien to its so called culture and society; forbidden and prohibited to its peoples and made all the more alien by the ongoing teachings of its Muslim clerics who are totally unelected & rule by indoctrination of their people from the cradle to the grave, enhanced by the the sword, the knife and the gun and preach nothing other than to hate (to the indoctrinated) all non muslim nations and their ways.

As an ex soldier having observed them, lived amongt them, been entertained by them, been beaten up by them, robbed by them, insulted by them, fought them, killed them to survive and fully equalled the score, seen what they have done and daily do to their own race and foreigners - Iraq will continue to cost the lives of foreigners for no reason whatsoever. Leave them to it, stand back and withdraw, it was never our fight in the first place!

Answer 10

I am willing to bet anything, that you will see a MAJOR troop withdrawal just before Presidential elections are due to begin. Look at the past wars. History with that has constantly repeated itself.