Courtesy of Mish.
The war in Iraq cost the lives of 4,489 Americans, with another 51,778 wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or injured. We wasted over a trillion dollars in the process.
Why? To remove Saddam Hussein.
Hussein was a brutal dictator, but that battle clearly was not our. And at least under Hussein, religious freedom existed. It doesn’t now. Chaldean Catholics are targeted and killed simply because they are Catholic.
There were no Al Qaeda forces in Iraq either. Hussein, a secular dictator, had no use for them.
Now, following the war Al Qaeda operates openly. They even control the town of Fallujah.
Please consider Iraq Forces May Soon Start Attack to Recapture Fallujah.
Iraqi security forces, militias or tribesmen may soon start an attack to retake the city of Fallujah from al-Qaeda-linked militants, a government official said.
“I believe that a final combat will take place soon,” Faleh al-Issawi, deputy head of the provincial council of Anbar, said by phone from Ramadi. “Fallujah city is totally controlled by militias and this extends to Garma,” a town about 15 kilometers (9 miles) away.
Forty civilians have died and 186 were wounded in the fighting, al-Issawi said, citing figures from hospitals in Ramadi and Fallujah. The attacking forces may include Iraqi troops, tribesmen, or militias, he said.
The U.S. is following the events in Iraq closely and is concerned by efforts of the “terrorist Al Qaida/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to assert its authority in Syria as well as Iraq,” State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement yesterday.
“We would note that a number of tribal leaders in Iraq have declared an open revolt against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” Harf said. “We are working with the Iraqi government to support those tribes in every possible way.”
Iraq’s air force carried out two air strikes on Fallujah and the nearby city of Ramadi that killed 55 al-Qaeda fighters, General Ali Ghaidan, chief of the country’s land forces, told al-Sumaria News. Maliki vowed to remove all “terrorist groups” from Anbar, according to a statement on his official website. …
