If you were President, what steps would you make to get our troops out of harms way, but still succeed in Iraq

Question

Please don't answer with "who cares..bring them home" Your mission is to give me a plan of steps, in order to succeed. Consider the reality, we're building military installations there and a 40 acre embassy. Consider we are planning on staying.

Answer 1

What is success in Iraq? President Bush has continually changed our goal for the Country every time he failed at another. However if peace is the ultimate goal than I think the only solution is to begin a complete withdrawal of troops. We cannot gain peace in this conflict militarily, we need to leave and allow the Iraqi's to control the security of their country while working with other Countries in the Middle East to help bring stability to Iraq. Having a military presence in Iraq has done nothing but make the situation worse and worse. By invading the Country we have already opened the door for Al Qaeda and other Terrorist groups to walk right in and have new placed to operate. And for those who think that by fighting in Iraq we are stopping the Terrorists from attacking us here, your simply fooling yourself. Look at London, fighting in Iraq didn't stop either the subway attack or the airport attack there. Terrorism isn't something you can stop by invading Countries, in fact invading Countries only creates more terrorists. We simply have to promote peace and work harder at securing our borders and increasing security here at home.

So if I were President, I would begin to bring all but the necessary troops to protect our embassy and to conduct counter-terrorism operations home. Acting as a police force is not an option for our Military if we want any kind of desired outcome.

Answer 2

More right wing propaganda. No one is trying to hurt the troops. Good grief! Just because someone doesn't agree with your narrow minded way of black and white thinking doesn't mean they are bad or that they are trying to hurt anyone. Actually over 60% of Americans want us out of Iraq. Defunding the war would accomplish that and save us tons of money. Unfortunately, while in the majority, the Democrats do not have a large enough majority to really do the will of the people as the people would have them do it. So what happens is the Democrats do propose limits and they are soon voted down by the Republicans who don't care about the will of the people. If by some miracle the Republicans do show a little care for the will of the people than Bush will veto the bill anyway. But the Democrats must keep trying. Eventually the Republicans will be pressured by upcoming elections to finally do the people's will or the fact that they don't will be used against them in the elections. The Turkey issue with the Armenian genocide is something that should not have been brought up. That happened 92 years ago by a government that no longer exists.

Answer 3

It seems pointless to debate whether or not the US is or should be the "world police" or whether we should have pursued Saddam Hussein. The only fact that matters now is that we DID topple the government of another country and we are responsible for all the consequences of that action.

Effective strategic planning requires valid data on which to base the decisions, and anyone that thinks all the relevant data is available on CNN is at best naive, at worst a fool! I can pretend to be the President, but I can't begin to pretend that I have the information I need to develop any kind of plan for dealing with a situation of this magnitude.

To those that would say "who cares, bring them home", I would say fine...but be prepared to face a threat from Iraq again in the next 5 to 10 years...and when this next threat comes, they will have even more reason to hate us for ignorning our responsibility for cleaning up the mess WE caused this time. The first major conflict didn't cost us very many troops, and this one is costing far fewer than many other similar wars in the past...the next one will be even more bloody...that's just the way it works!

To those that say we need to establish a permanent presence in the Middle East, again I say fine...but in that enviornment, we will continue to lose troops for the next decade. As many as we would lose if we leave and return for another war in 10 years?...I would have to say NO WAY. In the past five years, we've lost about 700 troops per year...in Vietnam, we lost nearly 6,500 per year and in Korea, we lost over 10,000 per year....I don't have a clue how many we might lose if we postpone the war with Iraq for 10 years, but you can bet that our government has all sorts of people with a lot more knowledge and experience than we have working those numbers.

Those that think we can establish democracy and bring peace to that region are even bigger fools than those that think CNN gives them complete, unbiased information!! The conflict in the middle east is basically a 5,000+ year old family feud! The old saying "familiarity breeds contempt" is quite true in this case. By involving ourselves in this conflict, we only give them more reasons to hate us...as outsiders, we can't possibly do anything to alter the root of the problem.

Having said that, I would probably favor a "Roman Empire" approach to this problem. To heck with helping them establish their own democracy...just annex Iraq and make it a US terrotory subject to the law of the U.S....then manage the territory the way the Israelies do...zero tolerance! Without that perspective, I think we're doomed to fail whether we leave or stay!

Answer 4

Tell Malike to start making Friends with the Sunni.Don't give the Iraq government any money to build anything before Maliki comes around.Give our troops the money,and take care of middle class American .Anything we build,they blow up anyway.

Answer 5

The purpose of troops is NOT to be "out of harm's way." The purpose of troops is to BE "in harm's way" to keep harm from coming our way.

People do not join the military to be safe, or out of harm's way.

With that in mind:

1. (As with America,) SECURE THE BORDERS. Prevent Iran or any other entity from shipping fighters and weapons into Iraq.

2. See number 1.

3. Pacify Baghdad. It's working, but surge the Surge if it doesn't. We cannot afford to lose this war.

4. Ignore the America-hating liberals who long for defeat, and say ridiculous things like "Fighting back emboldens our enemies."

It's really that simple.

Answer 6

We have already succeeded in Iraq. The goal was to remove Saddam from power, and at this point I doubt that he's coming back. We should declare success and slowly draw down to 20,000 troops stationed in the Green Zone. Also, we should go back to our traditional approach to foriegn conflicts.....sell weapons to both sides until one side prevails.

Answer 7

I would admit that I cannot do anything unless the people of Iraq want to have a stable civil society where they can live with their religious differences.

This is not our war to win or lose, but its up to the Iraqis to constitute their society. We cannot impose a society on them that has no popular support or very weak support.

Answer 8

Ok guys heres the plan, you are all coming home starting tommorrow, this is a lost cause, and the Iraqys can start learning to take care of themselves.


signed GW Bush, President USA.

Answer 9

That's a good question,but we sure do have a lot of people that knows, at least think they do.I can't understand why all these people don't run for President.

Answer 10

I would stop wasting our money over there and worry about here.We are not the world police. We need to mind our own business.