Annie Kate
Birmingham AL

Bush hunted down and killed Saddam Hussein because his daddy didn't. Saddam put a hit out on little Bush's dad. When little Bush took office his first priority was to figure out how he could kill Saddam. That is the rest of the story.......................

Unfortunately for the 4080-Plus dead Americans, nearly 30,000 wounded and untold Iraqui casualties, our leaders didn't know or want to know that the enemy they took on was and continues to be a resourceful foe capable of adapting to the ever changing challenges of warfare. Our enemy does make mistakes, of course. They originally didn't think we were capable or willing to take casualties in a difficult fight and were surprised when Afghanistan fell so quickly. And experts say that we had the leadership of our enemy cornered in the Afghanistan hills with numerous allies at our side – poised to deliver a knock-out blow until the president blundered us into Iraq. Even more unfortunate, ever since the first days of teh invasion, he and his administration have mismanaged all aspects of the war.

So this is my cop out – It will take greater minds than mine to tell what to do next in Iraq – the president drove the car over the cliff and as we are crashing down the slope he wants to hand off the wheel, expecting someone else to steer us out of disaster.

I don't envy the job facing a president Obama or McCain. Bush has left the country in a horrible state.

You see this is why I have no confidence in our government or the media. They can't even identify different terrorist groups correctly. By associating 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' with 'Al Qaeda', the media and our government are doing this group's PR for them.

Why does this matter? If you don't even have the wit and intelligence to be able to identify a group, how on earth are you going to stop it?

But to me the real incompetence comes from not setting the Shia against both terrorist groups. Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq are Sunni terrorists. Sunni terrorists hate Shiites even more than they hate Americans, and vice versa. A competent government would have charged our intelligence agencies with the task of setting these groups against each other, thus occupying them with killing each other instead of US troops. Instead they made our military a common enemy to both groups.

What the Pentagon is doing is demonstrating AQI exists. What they're not telling you is who are its members? Time magazine did an excellent piece several years ago on foreigners recruited as suicide bombers. The recruits were motivated by God but their handlers were all former Baathist intelligence officers.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck chances are it is a duck.
In this case it is set up like a military orgranization and behaves like a military organization so chances are it's run by elements of Hussein's military.

Mike is exactly right in his assertion that intelligence and use of arms can thwart the activities of terrorist organizations but he stopped short of making an important point. If you want to treat the disease of terrorism then don't just rely on surgery, combine it with some preventive medicine. Let's create a comprehensive strategy that defines and attacks the cause of terrorism (as noted by Ron M) as well as the terrorist organizations themselves (For you politicians out there that means that you have to get the State Department involved as well as CIA and DoD). Maybe it's my lack of visibility into official Washington but I haven't noticed much U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East beyond the usual between Israel and the Palestinians (though the issues are indeed linked with emotions throughout the Middle East and tend to fuel terrorist organizations). Diplomacy has to be more than MG Petraeus' well-conceived strategy of moving troops from garrisons to the streets. It needs to be far-sighted, coordinated at all levels and contain strategic goals such as obtaining the support of Arab nations to remove the motivators that fuel AQ and other home-grown terrorist organizations. It just seems to me that we haven't seen a lot of that going on.

So, just what is the receipe for victory in Iraq? Some don't seem to see this. It contains five key elements:
1) The rebuilding of a stable infrastructure within Iraq to meet the basic needs of its people, thus raising their satisfaction and standard of living, (this is happening)
2) The ability of the Iraqi government, through it's police, military and intelligence organizations, to successfully identify, confront and destroy terrorist organizations (both foreign and local – this is also happening but far too slowly),
3) The reduction of U.S. military involvement to support rather than combat roles (yes, that means that there will be some involvement of U.S. troops for a while – that's a fact of life – but even this will end eventually),
4) The creation of a self-sustaining economy (which can be done when the infrastructure is rebuilt and oil is flowing freely), and
5) The creation of a concise diplomatic effort aimed at freeing Iraq from Iranian and Syrian influence and establishing a plan to combat the causes of terrorism throughout the Middle East. For this final point just opening the dialog can be seen as a victory.

The bottom line is this: whether you agree or disagree with our reasons for being in Iraq, the reality is that we are there. We need to exit in a way that postures the Iraqi people for success, removes the fuel for the terrorist fire buring in their country and promotes greater stability in the region. I just wish that this was the discussion that our politicians were having.