The Iraq War: What Might Have Been

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, the most troubling fact, in a long and tragic list of troubling facts, is that we already know there will be a sixth anniversary. Worse yet, depending upon the outcome of the November election, there could be a seventh, tenth, twentieth, and twenty-fifth anniversary.

Five years later, America mourns the loss of almost 4,000 soldiers, grieves over the physical wounds afflicting more than 29,000 soldiers, grapples with the need to treat the invisible injuries that will strike tens of thousands of soldiers in the form of PTSD and TBI, and laments the devastating loss of life and injuries to hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

This administration didn't merely spend the bank on this needless war; it broke the bank, and the back of the US economy is sagging under the weight of an ill-conceived war plan that will indenture the American people for generations to come.

Five years later, the American people know that shock and awe was a diversionary tactic by an administration with no proof and no patience in its desire to settle an old score and subjugate Iraqi oil wealth. Today, shock and anger is what the American people feel about this war and the administration that misled us into it, as I predicted it would.

As millions of dollars in Iraq war spending turned into billions and, by all accounts, will reach a trillion dollars, I cannot help but think of how much America has sacrificed needlessly. Today, the American people overwhelmingly say the Iraq war was not worth fighting, and they would have said that five years ago had they been told the truth. Instead, the administration used fear to buy a war and false hopes to keep Americans fighting and dying in Iraq. And the real price being paid by the American people is far beyond what the administration wants you to know.

The money being wasted in Iraq is not available to provide the American people with universal health care coverage, or meet the urgent social safety net needs of our nation. The money being borrowed to fund this endless war is producing a towering mountain of debt. And most of all, this endless war is producing endless suffering in families across America and throughout Iraq. For every American casualty in Iraq, there are casualties to American families and communities. For all the pain we feel over the loss of a loved one, there is an enduring pain over what might have been, had they enjoyed the fullness of life in the country they so dearly loved.

On this 5th anniversary of a flawed and fatal war, let us resolve to make the November election the time when the American people issue new orders at the ballot box to end this war.

Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq

Comments

[jcorrington]

And yet, Senator, our congress has done absolutely NADA to thwart this administration in any of its endeavors and yea, even enabled it. For shame..




del 8300
ie7

[desmirl]

Until a majority of the Congress ARE NOT owned by the Military/Industrial Complex, nothing good will happen. Money and power are fueling a movement that will NOT end well.

[billydog]

5 years in Iraq IS surrender! Bush has surrendered our military to be Iraqis military. Does anyone not see that Iraq owns us now---and toss in alot of billions of hard earned American taxpayer dollars as
chump change for Iraq who's people correctly see us as infidels. This is a colossal American disaster with no one wanting to tell our soldiers that we surrendered and they now work for the Iraqi government.

[scooperss]

"On this 5th anniversary of a flawed and fatal war, let us resolve to make the November election the time when the American people issue new orders at the ballot box to end this war."

EXCUSE ME

We issued orders in 2006 and voted for people who promised to end the war if elected. Those people are now complicit in funding and escalating the war. Give me one good reason to vote for someone because they have a D after their name. Just one good reason will do. And that reason can't be because the D isn't an R. As we're seeing now, it's awfully easy to claim to be a member of one party but vote with the other. D,R what does it matter when lies are told to get elected.
Cases in point
joe lieberman
diane feinstein
jay rockefeller
harry reid
nancy pelosi

[researcher]

most americans in their hearts are imperialist and many are war mongers. until americans look into a mirror and see this in themsleves nothing will change.

60 years of a huge militry budget and a huge industrial military complex has conditioned americans to be imperialists and think they have a right to control the world.

we won the war in 45 and it has cost us. people from all over the world wanted our products after the big war and we thought it was due to our products but we soon got passed in quality realibility and innovation.

crunch time is here. we are fast becoming a second rate country due to greed and arrogance. cannot be stopped. vote in whomever you want our decline cannot be stopped.

must shift our paradigm to stop this decline. americans are not ready for that yet. 20 to 40 years of corp fascism will do it.

must follow jefferson's advice. 30 years overdue.

[2FedUp]

The Iraq war is not only "flawed" as you so politely and politically correct you put it, but more importantly, illegal under international and domestic law. If some ruler from another country committed these acts of aggression, there would be worldwide, demanding cries for impeachment, resignation, or trial for war crimes. Let no one forget that the US invasion of Iraq was based upon purposeful, governmental lies to Congress and the American people. All discussions of "mismanagement" are irrelevant under this light, so nice try McDermott, to make yourself look good after the fact. Congress failed miserably to act. What the US has done to Iraq is nothing short of criminal, and our leaders should be treated as such. What a shameful presidential and congressional legacy we leave for the world to ponder. It goes against everything America used to stand for. I don't know if the damage we have caused can ever be repaired.

[clearmind2008]

While the issue of the war is in itself troubling, the attitude and commitment of the current administration is even more devastating. We have several domestic problems growing more and more out of control. Yet, our government would rather sacrifice lives and trillions of dollars on foreign soil than to invest or make the same commitment to its own citizenry. I am embarrassed and apalled by this. Of course, as a civilized society, we want to relieve the suffering of others, if possible, but charity should also begin at home. It would be very difficult for me to try to feed the people down the street when my children are going hungry. Likewise, suffering should be eased at home before we seek to satisfy the problems abroad. Also, I am not convinced that we are in Iraq for anything other than oil and the protection of bush and Cheney interest in said oil.

[Repub4Obama]

Mr. McDermott

You are a representative in my state (Washington). You are also a SuperDelegate. You have also not declared your support for a candidate. Please take this, the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War, and make a stand. Pledge your support for Barack Obama publicly.

Barack, not Hillary, not John, was against the war. It is time that you pledge your support in ending this war by supporting the only candidate that has been against it from the start, and against it "with conviction."

I hope my comment finds your ears sir.

[Catspaw]

There wouldn't be any sixth anniversary if Congress had any balls. The Dems seem at least receptive to the concept of bailing out of this ill-conceived, losing situation. As for the Republican consitituency, trying to convince them of anything is sort of like trying to reason verbally with the dog turd you just stepped in. Better to just ignore the stink, scrape it off as best as possible, and keep on goin'.

[Sundialsvc4]

Rep. McDermott... this war will last fifteen years if it is allowed to last seven.

You and your colleagues can continue to talk, to wring your hands in public, to pretend to be buffaloed by the President or by the Other Party ... and the people who started this war will appoint their already-chosen successor and he will continue the war for another eight years. (It's not your vote that counts anymore; it's who counts the votes.)

Or...

Or you can stop by the National Archives. Find Article 2, Section 4 and read the tiny handwritten word, "shall" by the two tiny handwritten words, "be impeached," and allow its crucial implications to sink in.

You will, yourself, introduce the first set of Articles of Impeachment and force them, yourself, to get it to the floor no matter what Madame Speaker thinks about it. You will take it upon yourself to force them all the way to a vote. You will badger your colleagues in the Senate to do what must be done.

But you won't actually do that, will you?

You see, sir, it's one thing to talk about what coulda shoulda been done; quite another thing to do it.

Talk is cheap, isn't it, sir? But I doubt that this war has been anything but handsomely profitable to you and to your colleagues. Isn't that right, sir? What was the price, sir? Thirty pieces of silver?

[CitizenLegislatorCC]

HuffPost's Pick

Representative McDermott -

Instead of lamenting, as though the Legislative Branch is powerless, the power seized by the Executive Branch, and using the disaster in Iraq as a self-promoting excuse for an electoral victory for your political party this fall, it's time to push the temporary advantage that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer's principled refusal to back down on FISA has given the American people and Congress against the dishonest, reckless Bush administration, by raising the rhetorical stakes about Iraq.

To wit, it's time to start PUBLICLY asking:

Why the "enemy" our Armed Forces in Iraq are targeting and killing are Iraqis not affiliated in any way with Al Qaeda (with all the vicious associated urban-street-as-battlefield civilian "collateral" deaths that encompasses).

And why the overwhelming superiority of the United States military is being used to support Iranian-backed Shiites [ISCI and its Badr militia] who target and slaughter Iranian-neutral (at best) Shiites [Sadr and his Mahdi militia] in Iraq. [Iranian-backed Shiites who used death squads and their knowledge and access gained from the American occupiers to kill Iraq's former Iran experts and intelligence assets. This is in addition to both our active abetting, and bystanding indifference as roving gang elements of both Shiite groups have targeted, murdered and "ethnically cleansed" innocent Iraqi Sunnis in Baghdad and elsewhere.]

Http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080310&s=dreyfuss

["The United States is being played," agrees Kenneth Katzman, Middle East specialist for the Congressional Research Service. "The US military is being played by the [Iranian-backed Shiite] Hakims in this internecine struggle."]

That's Iraqi Shiite vs. Iraqi Shiite violence in which we are engaged, not the (fictional) fight against "Al Qaeda" Sunnis that the propaganda and disinformation our Executive Branch, legislators and media openly disseminate on a daily basis pretends it is, in order to justify and prolong our continued presence and (generally unspoken - so THANK YOU for your "subjugate Iraqi oil wealth" statement - but obviously oil-wealth-motivated) occupation of Iraq.

We're siding with the ISCI Shiites we installed as the "government" (and army and police) in Iraq in their effort to make Iraq effectively an acquiescent colony of Persian IRAN, despite the Arab nationalism of IRAQIs, apparently because it helps to promote the obscene private-profit-before-people agenda of the corporate raider types running the United States occupation in blind pursuit of an American oil colony on the sands of Iraq, with the help of witless Members of Congress.

Members of Congress who stand by and watch those corporate raiders at work with OUR Armed Forces, and either silently do nothing, or (especially if Republican) actively parrot their propaganda, or help distract and misdirect attention from the underlying agenda the United States has long been pursuing in Iraq by only daring to nibble around the edges of the core, profound cruelty, injustice, and thievery of our presence and the shatteringly-destructive mayhem it continues to wreak in Iraq.

I assume you (unlike most Members of Congress) are reading articles like the one I linked, even though the Democratic Congress refuses to hold Congressional hearings about what is actually happening on the ground in Iraq unless the architects of the disaster are the ones doing the testifying (as the media is likewise ignoring the grotesque reality, in accordance with their corporate profit agendas).

The corporate raiders have "succeeded" in maintaining their grip on Iraq's throat for five long years now. How much longer will their $22-Trillion-Dollar-Oil-Fields-Driven Iraq Occupation be allowed by Congress to continue?

["Iraqi nationalists--among them secular parties, Baathists, many Sunni parties, the Awakening movement and key Shiite blocs, including the Sadrists, despite their recent tilt toward Iran--are starting to coalesce around a program built on opposition to both the US military occupation and the Iranian political occupation. [..snip..] If the United States were to begin a rapid drawdown of its forces in Iraq, chances are good that Iraqi nationalism would begin to reassert itself. In the end, many analysts say, the Iraqis will limit Iran's influence in Iraq--but only if the United States gets out of the way."]

[Sundialsvc4]

I respectfully dissent, although this was "picked."

This is N-O-T "an inter-tribal struggle."

This is a war of conquest. This is a war to seize treasure. It is the greatest treasure in the world.

And if America "wins" the war, America won't wind up with control of the treasure. But the people who are authorizing it ... will.

You are being told a very small, very sanitized, very America-ized story. "25,000 policemen" not 25,000 "mercenaries." (Actually over a quarter-million mercenaries.) You've never been told just how big and bad this thing is.

The fact that not one of your most-senior leaders is telling you anything other than the same story ought to be a .. bloody .. red-flag to you that what happened for eleven years to the Russians is happening here; and, what happened to and brought-down the Empire of (Western) Rome in its latter days. More-or-less what bankrupted the European kingdoms from time to time. They didn't know about oil back then, but otherwise, more-or-less what fueled and toppled three major Crusades.

Believe it or not, in spite of the endless shrieking of a propaganda machine, there really are people like me out here who, armed with some knowledge of history, are trying to get a warning out while there is still time. This is not "reactionary" or anything else. Now, please stop drinking the "oh, it can't happen here, you're just over-reacting" kool-aid: the stuff's poisoned.

Honestly, if it were modern times, I think that when that patriot would have hung one light in the tower of Christ Church ("one if by land"), we'd have the White House Press Corps explaining why the Brits would never do such a thing and the Revolutionary War would not have happened. This never-to-be-a country would not have deserved to be free. But our forefathers had clarity, courage, and determination to overthrow what sought to destroy them. As General Eisenhower foresaw, this thing has the power to destroy us, but only if we allow.

[vippy]

And we think the DEMS are going to be different? Congress and the senate only work for their pockets
we should know that by now. Did we not vote for change November 06 and nothing happened.
Once again we were deceived. In the end I believe we have but one party. The new energy bill
begs for attention, it certainly did not accomplish what it should have done, we need 45 mpgs now not
in 2025. And the new DEM Budget went way overboard - I guess being broke don't mean a thing
to Washington. Rest assured, the war drums are beating for the Iran War and Hillary will be just the
one to continue it.

[RogerHWerner]

I agree with everything McDermott has said, which begs the question why Democratic party leadership has done precious little to change the situation. The argument that Democrats have too small majorities in the Congress doesn't pass the sniff test. My gut tells me that mainstream party leaders actually support the aims of the war and find that it is the execution that has failed. A year ago, some 7-% of the electorate opposed the war and wanted us out of it sooner rather than later. If Democratic leadership was waiting for a better time to muster the courage to act responsibly they blew it. I don;t doubt McDermott's sincerity on this issue only the sincerity of party leadership.

[The Collinbrandt]

I give to you jews and christians your future rulers: Bush, Bin-laden, McCain and Lieberman. The horeseman of your appocolypse. The rulers of the damned.

[doc1400]

It took Bushie just 7 years to break the U.S. economy with a combination of stupidity, hubris, and stubborness. This SOB will be remembered by historians as destroying the Republican party while he destroyed the U.S. economy.
He will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.

[newshawk14]

I totally agree with your post, but would also like to point out the damage he has done to the
US Constitution. I would strongly recommend that everyone read the book "Takeover: The Return
of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy", by Charlie Savage. One
of the things, that the talking heads keep forgetting, is that US military officers do not swear their
oath to the President, but to defending the US Constitution, and the best of them do not suffer
any confusion.