Iraq War's "Iron Anniversary" -- What Good Has Come Out of It?

Around this date six years ago I was packing up my apartment in Giessen, Germany as my unit, the 1st Armored Division, "Old Ironsides", prepared for our deployment to Iraq. My fellow lieutenants and I watched with great anxiety as our comrades in the 3rd Infantry Division and others were warming up their engines to follow the expected "Shock and Awe" of prepratory airstrikes into Iraq.

My soldiers watched and cheered as <strong>"Baghdad Bob" provided comedic commentary and repeated denials as our military quickly overwhelmed Saddam's military and were soon toppling a statue of the dictator in the heart of Baghdad.

Soon we would be in Kuwait preparing as the "follow on" force to bring stability to Iraq. I clearly remember packing a suitcase to put in the front of my storage locker with clothes for my college roommate's November wedding. We thought that we had 6 months maximum on the ground because once we found those Weapons of Mass Destruction the military's job would soon be, as Bush mistakenly announced, "Mission Accomplished!"

Unfortunately that suitcase stayed packed, and my soldiers and I spent over 14 months in the streets of Baghdad and Najaf. We went from eating dinner in the homes of everyday Iraqis to fighting Al Sadr's militia in the streets.

Now, six years later, we are celebrating this war's Iron Anniversary, and I can still smell the burning garbage and raw sewage that we drove through, I can still remember the nightly fireworks of tracer rounds we watched from our Baghdad rooftops, and I certainly can name each of my friends who did not return home with me.

I was sick to my stomach this last weekend listening to Dick Cheney tell John King that after 6 years in Iraq "we have accomplished nearly everything we set out to do."

In the words of Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers...Really!

As an officer in Iraq, I knew nothing of this grand scheme that our former Vice President talks about.

What I do remember is that soon after arriving in Baghdad we did not have a plan for our Phase IV Stability Operations. My fellow lieutenants and I were literally making up policy as we went along.

Is that what you mean Mr. Cheney?

I do remember creating training for our new Iraqi security force the night before they arrived as we had no guidance from Cheney's good buddy Don Rumsfeld. It was not long after this we found that when these Iraqi's went home at night they were using those same weapons we gave them against us.

Is that what you were planning to accomplish Mr. Cheney?

So much happened over this six year timeline:

Looting
Abu Ghraib
IEDs
Muqtada Al Sadr
Blackwater
"Last Throes"
Purple Finger elections...and I could go on and on.

Six years later and the American people have put this war on the back burner as our economy collapses and they worry about losing their homes. Well over 4,000 deaths, more than 30,000 wounded, $700 billion in treasure (billions of that stolen), but finally...maybe...after a Surge and more...we might, just might, have stability.

Is that what you intended Mr. Cheney?

Really!

There are some good things that have come from all of this.

There is a new generation of veteran activists and leaders who have taken the flag from those that came before us. Some fight to end the war, some fight for veteran health care and benefits, some fight for their wounded comrades, and some fight for the major changes we need in our national security apparatus to keep us safe.

These are young men and women who have seen the darkest parts of war and have come through to want to fight for a better future, a better America, a better world!

On this anniversary, take a few minutes to check out their websites and sign up for their efforts.

Let us use this Iron Anniversary to come together and work to make sure that Dick Cheney cannot remake history, let us come together to honor our troops who continue to fight, and let us come together to ensure that we do not have to celebrate the anniversary of future wars that did not have to happen.

Check out just a few of our fighting veterans:

Jon Soltz, Executive Director of VoteVets.org

Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Garett Reppenhagen, Veterans Green Jobs Alliance

Brandon Friedman, VetVoice

Nathaniel Fick, Center for A New American Security

Craig Mullaney, author, The Unforgiving Minute

Comments

[AGoldStarMom]

Jonathan-

Thank you for your service. Your deployment to Iraq sounds very similar and parallel to my son's. Did you know him? 1Lt Ken Ballard was KIA in Najaf on 5.30.2004. I can't believe it's been 5 years since I got that knock on the door.

Karen

[Moonlighter]

As a member of OIF in 2005-06, I was involved with the daily life of Iraqi citizens. Regarding Iraqi society, it is an ancient tribal and sectarian society. Democracy may work well there provided it is allowed to function within the society rather than be imposed from outside. In other words, local sheiks are powerful, yes, but also accountable to their people. Sheiks also have a responsibility to bring jobs and construction contracts back to their people much the way U.S. Legislators are responsible for same over here. You may call it earmarks, pork, or corruption, but people need jobs and people have to eat.

I arrived back in the U.S. and was astounded to learn about our government's response to Hurricane Katrina. I even remember Iraqi citizens giving me their condolences about the hurricane in August and September '05.

Of the dozens of Iraqis I met and worked with, almost every one of them had had a family member killed or kidnapped by somebody, somewhere, for some reason, since the invasion had taken place. My response now is to try to fix a few things in this country, particularly in New Orleans. That is why I am working with The Human Levee Music Project, at www.humanlevee.com. Check it out if you want.

[MikeDu]

What Cheney had set out to do in Iraq was to concoct a convient little war to use as a fig leaf behind which he could stagemanage a criminal, unaccountable domestic presidency for two terms. The actual war was always a sideshow. Was it Cheney or Rumsfeld who said re the Iraq war "People are fungible."

[tomterif]

"A criminal, unaccountable domestic presidency" is so general a "grab bag term " that... You may have very specific things in mind, there, but "I can't read your mind", and it would be helpful if you could be more specific, in a post like this.

Are you saying that Cheney was doing things domestically that "no one noticed" because Iraq was going on, but would have noticed if Iraq wasn't going on ?

I do think you "owe it to your readers" : ) to be more specific in a case like this, if you definitely have specific things in mind, here, that fits your delineated "vague framework of a scenario", though frankly, I'm not at all sure you're really in a position to list such specifics, but if you are, I'd certainly be interested in seeing what you have in mind.

[JDM73]

What Cheney meant, of course, is that the neoconservatives have established a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq. That was their goal, and it has certainly become a reality.

[bbmill37]

And if anyone was lucky enough to catch Rachel Maddow's show last nite, a lot of it was on this topic. She played some clips of GW back in 2002 (much younger-looking, and even less informed than when he left if that's possible). It was horrifying to see those clips and remember the terrible beginning of this fiasco and how they lied to our faces.

Nightmarish flashes came back to me, of a deck of cards wit h "ace of spades" or "jack of diamonds" and an Iraqi face on it (like a little kid's game) ..... and then the naked bodies of Hussein's sons shown lying dead on a slab..... since when did the USA show dead bodies like that??? No wonder those people think we're mercenaries. Not to mention Abu Ghraib, or Donald Rumsfield"s "unknowables", or Condoleeza Rice's mushroom clouds, or Colin Powell's baby pictures of a mobile unit supposedly carrying WMD's in Iraq. I wish I could say that's the past and we should move on, but no we shouldn't. These people need to be tried and prosecuted to show the world that we as Americans do not and DID NOT agree to what was done in our name. Goodbye George Bush .... may you live a long and miserable life.

[tomterif]

I don't know about in the US, but it was EXTREMELY important for Iraqis to be able to see Hussein's sons' bodies, and any Iraqi would be able to tell you why.

The very prospect, however slight, of Saddam Hussein, or his sons [who by all accounts were even worse than Saddam (particularly the oldest, I believe his name was Kusay ?, who Mubarak of Egypt, who knew him, referred to as a "psychopath"] returning to power, hung like a pall over Iraq, and knowing that Saddam was captured, and his sons were dead, was a crucial factor in even just beginning to turn the country around.

If the Americans had just said "Saddam's sons are dead" it simply would've been a totally different thing than Iraqis themselves, particularly Kurds and Shi'iia who would've "always been looking over their shoulder" for horrific retribution to come down instantaneouusly on them and their families, if Saddam and/or his sons somehow ever got back into power, so those bodies on the slabs, as grisly as they were, served a most important purpose, and it had nothing to do with "revenge for revenge's sake", let alone some perverse fascination with grisly death.

[Pulemerci]

First of all, thank you for your service. I don't think the work that was done removing that murderous psycho from power should be minimized. You took part in liberating an entire country from the grips of a ruthless dictator. Hopefully, the country will stabilize and become a strong democracy in the Middle East and inspire other countries to follow suit.

[TheLearnedEnglishDog]

And hopefully America will not give military aid to people like Saddam any more in the future, now that the GOP is out of power

[Pulemerci]

And hopefully the US (actually, Jimmy Carter on behalf of President Clinton) will not give nuclear hardware to people like Kim Jong Il in the future.

[tomterif]

You show no knowledge of history whatsoever, if you believe only Republican administrations forge alliances with people history ends up looking extremely unkindly on.

Think Kennedy and Johnson's support of the crooks running South Vietnam, or FDR and Stalin.

FDR and Stalin "is a tough one", I'll admit, that I've been thinking a lot about, because I believe many historians consider Stalin to have embodied types of degradation that were virtually unparalleled, and yet at the same time it seems highly questionable if America, Britain, and the other allies would've been able to defeat Hitler and Japan to win World War 2 without him.

Ast this point of my thinking, I still can't see us turning our back on Stalin, "even if we had it all to do over again", and even knowing what an absolute beast Stalin turned out to be.

[peterg76]

"accomplished nearly everything we set out to do."

The Iraqis caved on the oil concessions?

[Malco]

I live in a small parliamentary democracy on the other side of the world, so I don't understand some of the subtleties of the US political system, such as how you're allowed to bribe members of Congress provided you call it a donation. But what I don't understand MOST is how Cheney could have set up his very own death squad. Even if they never made a hit, isn't it still conspiracy to commit murder? And isn't that kind of... illegal? Or have I missed something?

[FredBrighton]

Silly person. Down load the Patriot Act and read it carefully. Congress (illegally) ceded to the President unlimited, unchecked power so long as he feels this nation is in danger. He can do anything, to anybody anywhere in the world and it's legal. He can give this power to anybody he chooses, so he chose to give Cheney his own branch of government and his own legal system. Of course Cheney had a death squad! He loves death and killing. He smiles when he talks of casualties. He's a lot like Charles Manson except Charlie wasn't wealthy so when he sent people out to murder he was breaking the law. When Cheney sends people out to murder, he IS the law. Even now he and Bush claim all those powers went home with them. Isn't that interesting? What form of government would you call that? I'm not sure dictatorship is quite accurate. But it's sure the opposite of a democratic republic.

[research]

Bankrupt the US government till you can drown it in a bathtub?

Done.

Allow a terrorist "Perl Harbor" event to happen on US soil, so that basic right can be removed in favor of a police state?

Done.

Borrow and give the money to your wingnut cronies to keep them in power forever?

Done.

Destroy the good name of the USA by torturing and lying to invade a country, so internal corporatism can rule?

Done.

He's right.

[Pulemerci]

"Allow a terrorist "Perl Harbor" event to happen on US soil, so that basic right can be removed in favor of a police state?"


I think you need a bigger tin-foil hat. What basic rights have been removed and from whom? BTW, Pearl Harbor is US soil and 9/11 was NOT allowed to happen.

[TheLearnedEnglishDog]

Thanks for your personal opinion about 911. That makes me think about all those unanswered questions a lot less, knowing that an armchair expert has decided that it was inevitable

[JohnHKennedy]

Thank you all,
so very, very much for your service. Words cannot convey our collective thanks.

You would not have had to be there if it were not for the lies and exaggerations of Bush, Cheney and their appointee lawyers.

There was no doubt that 9-11, like Pearl Harbor, needed to be avenged,
but Bush had another agenda.

Bush, Cheney, & appointees lied about WMD, aluminum tubes, & Niger Uranium to con Congress into approving an invasion of Iraq, a country that did not have anything to do with 9-11.

In WW-II, in 4 years, FDR put 13,000,000 men in the fight, beat 3 dictatorships, their leaders dead at the end.

After 7 years of War On Terror, neither Bush nor Cheney could find Osama Bin Laden, our US reputation is in the gutter, we're still at war, over 4,200 US Soldiers are dead, over 30,000 maimed for the Bush-Cheney arrogance & lies. They ordered Torture, a violation of Federal Law.

Unless Obama's statement that “no one is above the law” is a lie,

Obama must appoint a Special Prosecutor for Bush, Cheney and the appointee lawyers that advocated Torture, violated many Federal Laws, our Constitution & the Geneva Convention on Torture.

Sign The Petition To Prosecute

http://ANGRYVoters.org

[Malco]

Great post Jon. If this has all turned out more or less as Cheney wanted, he's clearly insane.

[TheLearnedEnglishDog]

millions dead. Billion in Halliburtons pocket. New oil contracts. World in chaos. What's not to love? He's a Neocon. He achieved his goals. As to all the mangled bodies I think Cheny summed it up best with his "SO?" comment

[woodsywizz]

HuffPost's Pick

I served in DESERT STORM, a mobilized Reservist for 11 months. Anyone who was there knew that Moslems, in this case Arabs, have a different culture than ours. You have to have Americans who understand the Middle East involved in decision-making. Everyone who's served or lived in the Middle East predicted what actually happened. It's not rocket science that when you destroy a government you have to replace it. Yet we did not use people who knew how to do so. I'm not angry, I'm sad. And I lost friends too.