What is victory/defeat in iraq? Military, politically...?

Question

People talk about us loosing the war, or winning, or something in between. But for normal citizens (not politicians), what is winning or loosing Iraq. Do we know what it looks like?

tedjordan: is that a military battle then? it seems your victory seems to be a political one, but loosing is a military one.

Answer 1

winning=iraq becomes self-sufficient
losing=iraq stays in civil war

Answer 2

Although probably a minor political defeat for the Bush administration, it will probably come off as a win for the U.S. Remember the Republicans and Democrats both traded seats on the federal level in the midterm election and that on the state level there was almost no change at all. Also a few of Republican senators were booted out for corruption (including trying to date a page). Arabs hate everybody including themselves, so winning the hearts and minds would never be achieved.

Winning in Iraq
1. Create a Democratically elected government. That was achieved.
2. Complete the 3,200 infrastructure projects that the U.S. thought Iraq needed. As of Aug. 2006 that has been 82% achieved.
3. Train the Iraqi police and soldiers. The Iraqi president says that will be achieved in June 2007.

As far as the violence in Iraq, there has been some corruption in the Associated Press that is literally creating ficticious violence in Iraq. This includes the photographer that was fired after complants by press critics that he doctored photos. Some of the false stories:
1. Quoting ficticious police officers
2. Saying some Sunnis were set on fire and in front of Iraqi soldiers.
3. Listing soldiers and police finding bodies when the official report has no such report of those activities.
4. Listing some mosques being destroyed, but were not.
5. The press was inflating casualties as in the 600,000+ number when the morgue talley is around 130,000-150,000 for everyone that died from anything in Iraq. The report that Baker helped create lists about 60,000 insurgence dead and of course some Iraqi police and soldiers were killed so that greatly decreases the civilian figure for any deaths.
6. Not pointing out that Iraqis have been digging up bodies and placing them around a recent attack and them claiming they were killed by allied forces (The PLO uses live and dead people to create fake pictures of civilian dead and the Afgans are also digging up the dead).

I think the next assesment should be in June 2007.

Answer 3

Here is my point of view as a French.

I would say that the US and the coalition lost this war even though some victories have been achieved,

For the victories : I see the arrest of Saddam, the fall down of a dictatorship, the huge contract that US oil companies signed ( in fact companies close to the Bush administration ).

But the defeat are more important :
- civil war and chaos all over Irak : dozens of killed everyday, GIs falling like dead leaves, lots of kidnapping
- Bush suffered a direct hit with the lost in the recent election
- the US wanted to implant a democratic governement. But we have yet to see its effect and power.
- because of the war, more and more people, mainly in muslim area, hate the western world.

I guess this is what you get when you go at war for wrong reasons.

Answer 4

Victory or defeat in Iraq can only be defined by the Iraqi people, their goals, and their aspirations as a nation.

The U.S., nor any other country, cannot determine victory or defeat in Iraq unless Iraq is "brought to its knees" by military force or the U.S. and other countries are "brought to their knees" by Middle Eastern economic and/or military/political/economic forces.

The U.S. may not be committed to winning, but are we prepared to accept defeat?

Answer 5

the aim of war in Iraq was to do the situation in the Middle East and in the world more stable. Do we have this result in Iraq? - No. And if the military operations in Afghanistan was necessary and justified, in Iraq we have opposite situation. Saddam was dictator, communist, nationalist, but he never been terrorist. His authority provided stability in multicultural Iraq. Victory in Iraq will be creation of strong and more just power, that power of Saddam, the defeat will be chaos and bloodshed after care of the American troops. It will be defeat not only for US, but for hole world. This is the main reason to support US today.

Answer 6

When and IF Iraq's democratic government can control the internal strife and bring the radicals under control - we will have won.
If the radicals take control and create a terrorist breeding ground, we will have lost.
I seriously doubt if there's anything "in between."

Answer 7

We are winning militarily....Army Lt. General Chiarelli.

We are losing the media battle.

Answer 8

depends on which of bush's reasons for invading you believe.if you go for wmd we already won,they dont have any.if you go for regime change hey mission accomplished,so why are we still there.i guess because the real mission is kill as many gi's as possible while making bush and his friends as much money as possible.