Oct

16

WaPo Editorial Critical of War Written By Soldiers Not in Iraq for 1-2 Years

by Stephan Tawney | 9:29 am 

Like Bob Owens, I appreciate that the soldiers wrote this editorial after having served their nation bravely. But it’s a history lesson - not an current observation.

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we’ve seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it’s like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it’s time to get out.

But only two of the captains (totaling 12) had been in Iraq as late as 2006. The others departed in 2005. Just last year, nay, as late as early this year, Anbar was written off as a lost cause. We were seeing peaking casualty (both military and civilian) rates, there was much more sectarian fighting, and Iraqi citizens weren’t beginning to write off the Mahdi Army as “thugs”, choosing instead to get jobs and support families.

Troops currently on the ground share a different opinion. Why not have troops with their boots on the ground write an editorial? The situation these captains saw then is hardly the situation our troops are seeing now.

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