Iraq War: Mission Accomplished?

Aaron Briggs

  President Obama appeared to put a lot of minds to rest last week when the administration announced the end of combat operations in Iraq. Controversy has been stirring about exactly what the President meant when he said that the troops had reached the “end of combat operations”.

The Associated Press recently released an internal memo that outlined the organizations policy on reporting the troop actions. The memo states

 “To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and al-Qaida insurgents...our stories about Iraq should make clear that U.S. troops remain involved in combat operations alongside Iraqi forces, although U.S. officials say the American combat mission has formally ended.”

http://www.veteranstoday.com/

 This may seem familiar to those of us who watched George Bush strut around the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln after a noisy jet landing, and give a speech under a banner loudly proclaiming “mission accomplished”. It is not uncommon for politicians to be premature in their assumptions, especially in an election season. A war that costs $1 trillion dollars and is responsible for the deaths of over 4,400 Americans is an issue that many incumbent politicians would prefer to ignore during their reelection campaigns.
 To his credit, Obama has withdrawn over 100,000 troops from Iraq since entering office, and has promised the exit of all troops by 2011. However; most of those troops have been reassigned to Afghanistan, where troop levels have tripled to over 100,000. One would hope that the end of combat in Iraq would mean an eventual reduction in defense spending, but Reuters has reported

“The Pentagon fiercely opposes cuts and is pushing for at least 1 percent real growth in coming years in its "top line" budget, the total amount spent on non-war operations. While spending on the Iraq war is declining, costs for the Afghan war are reaching record highs.”

  It seems we are jumping out of the frying pan and into Afghanistan, the failed state that made fools of the previous invaders with imperialist ambitions, the Soviet Union.