Here's How I Think George Bush Jr. Could've Handled Iraq Better

I cannot say that I agree with your solutions. I'm a Veteran of the Iraq War, and I've heard a slew of arguments regarding the how the Iraq War was conducted. Most started notably with, "We should have..." But lets review yours suggestions and my observations to them: 1. Eliminate Hussein and his regime - I believe this was accomplished for the most part. In the latter years of the actual war, the majority of our fighting was against Islamic radicals. 2. Establish a permanent military base somewhere near Iraq to do drone strikes on Iraqi extremists if we ever need to do so - Keep in mind this is the Middle East we're talking about. A place crawling with Islamic fanatics intent on destroying the influence of the "Infidels" and Western culture in their country. There's also another consideration to take in mind: These radicals don't stay in their own country. They go where the "Infidels" are. September 11th is a prime example. When I was in Iraq, more than half of the actual insurgents we picked up were not even native to Iraq. They came from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, etc,. . We establish a permanent military base near Iraq, and we're essentially inviting extremists to come into that host country and cause chaos in their neighborhood. Now we're fighting two battles. This strains our relationship with the host country. - As far as drone strikes go - We're talking about more potential civilian casualties. This, in turn, gets broadcast all over CNN for the rest of the world to see. The majority of Americans I've spoken to have a problem with drones, and are very skeptical concerning their uses and the potential for future abuse. I'm sure our host nation (whatever it may be) and neighboring countries of Iraq would have a similar problem and paranoia. 3. Feed the Iraqi people lots of propaganda telling them that they can form their own democratic free nation, and also that they need to fight against any Muslim terrorists who want to establish a theocracy - We did. They did. They weren't ready. Look who runs the country now. 4. Withdraw from the country, having stayed in Iraq no later than January, 2005. We could either just leave or have another nation send their soldiers to take the place of ours. - And concrete the opinion of the rest of the world regarding America. We go in, blow segments of the country to hell, then leave the responsibility of rebuilding, establishing a government, etc., to the masses of the country. Or we hand it off to some other country, and say, "Hey, take over." In other words, relinquish responsibility for our actions. As a service-member that idea simply eats at the core of who I am as a person, and what we're taught in the military concerning responsibility for actions. So when we "ended the war" in Iraq, it was no surprise to me that Al-Qaeda took over again. They weren't ready, and we dropped our responsibility too soon. I read somewhere that it takes 3 - 10 seconds to tell a lie, and then it takes 10 minutes to dissect the lie and make it explode. I think Government leadership might have learned something from that, and applied that logic to the time period needed to maintain stability in a place like Iraq, following the years when major combat operations were still being conducted. -Incidentally, what country do you think would have taken over for us? This would've cost us a lot less money, and if we had another country carry on the occupation in our place the result would've been the same. And with the assistance of heavy propaganda we could get them to not accept Al-Qaeda's rule. As everybody knows, Al-Qaeda's making a comeback in Iraq. -I already covered this.