For those who have served in Iraq, is the U.S. winning?

Question

We our leaders we hear that "We're winning the war on terror in Iraq." From others, "We're bogged down in a winnless quagmire and should pull out." For those glorious soldiers who have served in Iraq. Assuming that "winning" means Iraq's goverment is able to survive on it's own. A) Are we winning in Iraq? B) If not, what needs to be done to win? or should we count our losses and bring everyone home if Iraq is unwinnable? (Responders: This is not about whether we should have or should have not invaded Iraq, we're there so what do we do now?)

Answer 1

OK, first i am not a vet but I am a military historian that lives by a military post so I think i may be little qualified here. First off I have to say this: War is policy by other means. This means usually by force. Aslo First off to win a war your war goals/aims/policies have to be met. For example, the best example of this is the first Gulf War. Our policy then was that Saddam had to get out of Kuwait, we told him to and he didn't. So we went to the UN they said Saddam you need to get out of Kuwait..he still didn't. So since he did not listen we used other means to enforce our policies which was force and well less than a week later, Saddam was out of Kuwait...Goal accomplished troops home. Ok this time around it's harder to see due to 9-11 and WMD talk everywhere. Our goal this time was to take away any WMD's (although we didn't find any there is always going to be bad intell, you can't necessarily say we were lied to because that isn't really known if it was just a ploy to get us into war), get Saddam out of power, democratize the country, and be able to leave with having a stable government who could effectively and efficiently run their country with out any help from us. So here's the up date...we have accomplished our goals except the last, and we just turned the government over last week so now we have to see if they can handle their own country. We are winning the war in Iraq, slowly but we are. The worst strategy would be to count our losses, if that was to happen then the government would crumble much like it did in Viet Nam (yeah we were winning there too had the same end war goal but we left before South Viet Nam was stable and could hold it's own due to such negative feelings over here and the North Viet Namese took back over like nothing had happened, we may have lost so many there, but we won basically all fights and the casualty ratio was in our favor we just left before our goal was reached). So no we can't come home or Iraq will be in a disasterous civil war not only between the government but the insurgents but also the tribes such as the Sunnis and Shiites. And what ever you here, trust me they are glad we are there for the most part and that it's bad news that sales not good so you aren't going to hear of soldiers building schools or giving out candy and toys to the kids. This i know for a fact due to me personally sending pounds of candy to friends over there for the kids.

Answer 2

OK, here goes again....
THe intitial invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror. It had to do with Saddam failing to comply with multiple UN resolutions put in place after the end of Desert Storm (Gulf War I)

Now that Saddam is gone. and a new Freely Elected Iraqi Government is in place, That war is over. We won.
What is going on over there now is this... The Iraqi government is a very new and fledgling government struggling to come into it's own. We are there as Iraq's Ally and are fighting against the "insurgents".
These insurgents are NOT Iraqis fighting against an American "Oppressor" as the terrorists (And liberal American terrorist sympathizers) would have you believe. Over 90% of the insurgents are foreign fighters from other parts of the Mideast who are answering the call to "jihad" for the Terrorists who are using Iraq and the power vacuum created when Saddam was taken out. Most of the insurgent attacks are not directed at US troops but at Iraqi Mosques and Police stations and other Iraqi facilities. Yes we are still getting attacked too.
The War in Iraq now IS the war on terror though it did not start out that way. So to directly answer your two part question...
A) Yes we are winning the war. With Al Qaida's #1 (Zuquari) Killed by a GBU-10 500lb laser guided bomb, and the Capture of Al-Qaida's #2 just earlier this week, We are slowly but surely winning.
B) We are not losing , but there are some things we can do to help win the war....
1) Stop listening to the idiots (Far left liberals) who just want to spin everything negative to score political points against Bush. These people care less about the war and more about their own political power. They twist things around to shed the most negative light possible in order to sway your opinion to their side.

2) Stay the course. Keep supporting our Troops. Know that they are doing a difficult job and all the negativity just makes things worse. At some point the Terror threat will be reduced enough Terror will always be with us in some form) that the Iraqi government will be able to hold it's own. At that point, AND ONLY THEN, we can bring our boys home.

Answer 3

I just got back from my second tour. The first time was the invasion when we took it. The second was a little over a year later and it was a world of difference. The answer is we are winning the war. But that does not sell papers. So the media will focus in on everything negative they can. They will make movies about part time soldiers who come back and ***** about how the Army actually forced them to deploy!!!! How dare they.(The earlier comment was sarcasm. If you don't want to fight or deploy then don't f#&@g join!!) The other problem is America's bout with ADD. We like short sweet wars where no one dies or very few and is over in a half hour episode of Seventh Heaven. Freedom is earned. People say it but never really know what it means. What if the founding fathers had said this war with Britan sure is tough, let's quit now and watch Ben Fraklin knows best on the tv(yes I know they did not have TV back then, they did not have as many liberal ******* either) A country is not born in a half hour sitcom it is born out of the blood, sweat, tears and patience of the men who fight for it. In Iraq we gave them freedom and now it is our job to get the ones who were opressed the chance to regain their country and maintain it. This will take time. So you can say we are losing but the ones who know the truth no that while life is not easy now they sure as hell don't want to go back to Saddam!!!

Answer 4

No we aren't. The US commanders are trying to pull it all together befoore its too late as in too late to make even the remotest change. The commanders say that the troops are disobeying their officers, they aren't doing their duty and they are appalled that the soldiers are running lose as so to speak. We won't win the war if this goes on like it has done.

Answer 5

Well sitting here with my husband who just came of deployment couldn't give me a straight answer so I am gonna say NO! He says we are containing what the he!! does that mean???

Answer 6

Is this a game?? Does anyone ever really win a war?? No, they don't!!

Answer 7

we r winning on terror in iraq but we lost iraq