U.S. involved in Iraq longer than WWII

 

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 26, 6:54 AM ET

 

WASHINGTON - The war in

Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that

President Bush's father fought in, World War II. As of Sunday, the conflict in Iraq has raged for three years and just over eight months.

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Only the Vietnam War (eight years, five months), the Revolutionary War (six years, nine months), and the Civil War (four years), have engaged America longer.

 

Fighting in

Afghanistan, which may or may not be a full-fledged war depending on who is keeping track, has gone on for five years, one month. It continues as the ousted Taliban resurges and the central government is challenged.

 

Bush says he still is undecided whether to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq or add to the 140,000 there now.

 

He is awaiting the conclusions of several top-to-bottom studies, including a military review by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

Expected soon, too, are recommendations from an outside blue-ribbon commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican close to the Bush family, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who was one of the leaders of the Sept. 11 commission.

 

The Iraq war began on March 19, 2003, with the U.S. bombing of Baghdad. On May 1, 2003, Bush famously declared major combat operations over, the pronouncement coming in a speech aboard an aircraft carrier emblazoned with a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

 

Yet the fighting has dragged on, and most of the 2,800-plus U.S. military deaths have occurred after Bush suggested an end to what he called the Iraq front in the global fight against terrorism.

 

Politicians in both parties blame the increasingly unpopular war for GOP losses on Capitol Hill in the November elections that handed control of the House and Senate to Democrats.

 

Twice before in the last half-century have presidents ? Harry S. Truman in Korea and Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam ? been crippled politically by prolonged and unpopular wars.

 

Bush last week visited Vietnam for the first time, attending a summit of Asian and Pacific Rim nations. Asked if the Vietnam war held any messages for U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush said it showed that "we'll succeed unless we quit."

 

John Mueller, an Ohio State University political scientist who wrote the book "War, Presidents and Public Opinion," said Americans soured on Iraq after "doing a rough cost-benefit analysis. They say, `What's it worth to us and how much is it costing us?'"

 

By that standard, Americans were willing to abandon the Iraq war long before they turned against the war in Vietnam, Mueller suggested. "So that, for example, when more than 2,000 Americans had died in Iraq, support lowered. It took 20,000 deaths in Vietnam to lower support for that war to the same level," he said.

 

In the casualty count, the Civil War was the most lethal, with military deaths of the North and South combined totaling at least 620,000. By comparison, the total for World War II was roughly 406,000; Vietnam, 58,000; Korea, 37,000; World War I, 116,000.

 

The outgoing Republican chairman of the

Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia, a veteran of World War II and a former Navy secretary, noted solemnly at a recent hearing of his committee that Sunday would mark the day when U.S. was involved longer in the Iraq war than it had been in World War II.

 

Yet the October 2002 congressional resolution that authorized the Iraq war "addressed the Iraq of

Saddam Hussein, which is now gone, and no more a threat to us," Warner said.

 

While the United States is helping the Iraq's current government to assume the full reins of sovereignty, "we need to revise (our) strategy to achieve that goal," Warner said.

 

U.S. involvement in the Iraq war has outlasted that of the Korean War (three years, one month); the War of 1812 (two years, six months); the U.S.-Mexican War (one year, 10 months); World War I (one year, seven months); the Spanish American War (eight months); and the first Persian

Gulf War (one and a half months).

 

Democrats and Republicans are divided about what to do next in Iraq.

 

Many Democrats and some Republicans have called for a phased withdrawal. Some lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., a 2008 presidential hopeful, are urging that more U.S. troops be sent to help stabilize Iraq.

 

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), the Michigan Democrat who will be the next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argues for beginning to bring troops home soon. "We should put the responsibility for Iraq's future squarely where it belongs, on the Iraqis," Levin said. "We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves."

 

Experts of various political stripes have suggested that the options are few.

 

"No mix of options for U.S. action can provide a convincing plan for 'victory' in Iraq," said Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The initiative has passed into Iraqi hands."

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061126/ap_on_...bush_s_long_war

 

 

 

mission accomplished?

The war in Afghanistan has been going on far longer than the war in Iraq and thus much longer than WW2, yet we haven't seen any articles or news reports about that.

And the situation there is just as bad if not worse. But there was a reason for that war. A Legit reason worthy of going to war.

And the situation there is just as bad if not worse.

Not really.

 

But I can already predict how the rest of this thread is going to go, so i'm going to just stay out unless something truly egregious is said.

The war in Afghanistan has been going on far longer than the war in Iraq and thus much longer than WW2, yet we haven't seen any articles or news reports about that.

 

Well, thats because there's about 1/20 the amount of soldiers.

both will be considered "civil wars" soon at the rate they are going.

I wonder about our exit strategy from Okinawa.

I wonder about our exit strategy from Okinawa.

:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

I wonder about our exit strategy from Okinawa.

:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

Id like both of you to answer these questions.

 

How many US soldiers died during our post-war occupancy of Japan and Germany compared to Iraq?

How many civilians from those nations died in the period that we occupied those countries compared to Iraq?

How many kidnappings and road side bombings occured during our occupancy of those two countries?

What ethnic groups were on the verge of tearing each other to shreds in Japan and Germany?

 

You take two totally different situations and compare them as if they are definitely the same. No wonder we are stuck in the mud with this war with this line of thought. The mass majority of the leg work for those conflicts was the invasion itself. The mass majority of the leg work here is the post-war situation. There was never a question that we would be able to invade Iraq. There was always a question of whether we could handle the conflicting ethnic and political powder keg while rebuiling a democracy.

 

Only people who put on blinders and see everything in black and white can seriously find the Japan-Iraq comparison totally legit. Even Republicans, and to some degree the Bush administration, are starting to see this has becoming a massive quagmire. With the election over, youll start to see a lot of admissions on this and not just from the democrats. Only a small enclave of neo-con fools seriously thinks we are not facing major problems if not already in the middle of them.

If there is any good news out of this whole mess, it is that the neoconservative stranglehold on policy is in its' last throes.

 

I have been reading more books about how this war came about, and it's disturbing that we went to war on such flimsy intelligence. It's just disgusting.

 

Let's face it, things aren't going to get any worse if we leave. Have the Iraqis fix the mess, since obviously we can't.

I wonder about our exit strategy from Okinawa.

:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

Id like both of you to answer these questions.

 

How many US soldiers died during our post-war occupancy of Japan and Germany compared to Iraq?

 

Something less than the 50,000 that died achieving Germany.

 

How many civilians from those nations died in the period that we occupied those countries compared to Iraq?

Something less than the 5.5 million Germans and 2 million Japanese that died from WWII.

 

How many kidnappings and road side bombings occured during our occupancy of those two countries?

 

Do you want to ignore the thousands of political prisoners, executed dissidents and other occupation victims in post war Germany?

 

What ethnic groups were on the verge of tearing each other to shreds in Japan and Germany?

 

Would you accect political factions such as the West Berlin Tupamaros? Movement 2 June? The Red Army Faction? The Socialist Patients Collective? The Baader-Meinhof Gang?

 

 

World War Two is a bad comparison for the Iraq conflict, I was mocking the article with my response. Try looking at the Philippine-American War of 1899-1913. Comparable numbers of American forces, similar task to put down an insurgency (but with different aims), etc.

i hate politics

Let's face it, things aren't going to get any worse if we leave.

Yes, I agree! We will soon be executing an "exit strategy" which will abandon our friends to the tender mercy of Al Qaeda in the central part of the country and Sadr's militia in the south. (If you happen to be in the Kurdish area in the north, you'll be OKAY for now.) Thousands of brave Iraqi's who stood with us and sought to build for themselves a nation will be slaughtered, but at least we'll be able to feel better about supporting the troops by bringing them home.

Let's face it, things aren't going to get any worse if we leave.

Yes, I agree! We will soon be executing an "exit strategy" which will abandon our friends to the tender mercy of Al Qaeda in the central part of the country and Sadr's militia in the south. (If you happen to be in the Kurdish area in the north, you'll be OKAY for now.) Thousands of brave Iraqi's who stood with us and sought to build for themselves a nation will be slaughtered, but at least we'll be able to feel better about supporting the troops by bringing them home.

The DIA has said that al Qaeda only makes up 2-3% of the insurgents in the country.

 

If you have a better solution, we (and the government) are all listening.

Let's face it, things aren't going to get any worse if we leave.

Yes, I agree! We will soon be executing an "exit strategy" which will abandon our friends to the tender mercy of Al Qaeda in the central part of the country and Sadr's militia in the south. (If you happen to be in the Kurdish area in the north, you'll be OKAY for now.) Thousands of brave Iraqi's who stood with us and sought to build for themselves a nation will be slaughtered, but at least we'll be able to feel better about supporting the troops by bringing them home.

The DIA has said that al Qaeda only makes up 2-3% of the insurgents in the country.

 

If you have a better solution, we (and the government) are all listening.

Mabye in 2003, but not now. The largest insurgent group in Iraq is even named "AL QAEDA IN IRAQ" for god sakes.

 

I don't have a better solution, why we actually went to war is irrelevant now, the fact of the matter is we're there, we created this and it is our responsibility to make things right. Pulling out is the worst possible thing that could happen and goes against the advice of every single military commander. The violence going on in Iraq right now will seem like a shoving match in a school yard compared to the enormous bloodbath and outright genocide that will occur if we pull out.

 

John McCain has the best solution, in my opinion.

The war in Afghanistan has been going on far longer than the war in Iraq and thus much longer than WW2, yet we haven't seen any articles or news reports about that.

 

 

probably because that war hasnt been waged over false pretenses like the iraq one.

The war in Afghanistan has been going on far longer than the war in Iraq and thus much longer than WW2, yet we haven't seen any articles or news reports about that.

 

 

probably because that war hasnt been waged over false pretenses like the iraq one.

Yup, so let's just leave and let the insurgents take over the entire country and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's be exterminated. There is a thing called "personal responsibility" which I know is foriegn to most democrats, the fact of the matter is we created what's going on in Iraq and it's our responsibility to clean things up and see it through until the end whether you like it or not. So because a war is unpopular we should leave and abandon countless hundreds of thousands and probably even millions of innocent Iraqi's to certain death? Please. I know you're a democrat, but you're not that stupid Das.

Maybe we have personal responsibility to them, however, I doubt that the country will allow this mess to continue indefinitely.

 

I think we can pretty much bury George W. Bush's presidential legacy by now. Somewhere on its tombstone needs to be added "Killed by Iraq".

The war in Afghanistan has been going on far longer than the war in Iraq and thus much longer than WW2, yet we haven't seen any articles or news reports about that.

 

 

probably because that war hasnt been waged over false pretenses like the iraq one.

Yup, so let's just leave and let the insurgents take over the entire country and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's be exterminated. There is a thing called "personal responsibility" which I know is foriegn to most democrats, the fact of the matter is we created what's going on in Iraq and it's our responsibility to clean things up and see it through until the end whether you like it or not. So because a war is unpopular we should leave and abandon countless hundreds of thousands and probably even millions of innocent Iraqi's to certain death? Please. I know you're a democrat, but you're not that stupid Das.

I think he is responding to the lack of articles there dude. No reason for the hostility towards him. He never even stated anything about leaving there from what I can see. It was a war over false pretense (iraq).

 

Even though we have royally screwed up in Afghanistan too honestly.

The length of the war does not matter, it is the outcome.

 

We must bring our troops home in victory and not defeat.

^^ Then get your ass to Iraq! Why are you diddling on this website then? At least Accord backs up his words (however misguided and inaccurate they may be) with actions.

Why don't you got to Iraq? :banghead

 

I would fight for this country if I had to, because it is worth fighting for.

Whoa whoa whoa, YOU'RE the one shooting off at the mouth about "staying the course". And don't give me this crap about if you had to, because you're 21 years old, you know DAMN well you can.

 

Which also begs the question: do you think fighting in Iraq is fighting for this nation? If so, THEN GET YOUR ASS OVER THERE!!!!

Whoa whoa whoa, YOU'RE the one shooting off at the mouth about "staying the course". And don't give me this crap about if you had to, because you're 21 years old, you know DAMN well you can.

 

Which also begs the question: do you think fighting in Iraq is fighting for this nation? If so, THEN GET YOUR ASS OVER THERE!!!!

 

I have never been an advocate of "stay the course." The enemy constantly adapts and we should also. I think that President Bush made a mistake by using the phrase "stay the course." I just think that it is important that we bring the troops home in victory and not in defeat. We must win this war on terror or there will be nothing left to fight for.

 

My biggest problem with the war is the politicans in Washington sitting behind a $1,000 wood desk in a $3,000 Armani suit and criticizing the Bush administration, our allies, and our soldiers. All they do is criticize and not a single one of them has come up with a good idea that could actually be implemented. It is not up to the Armani suit big elephants in the room to decide how the war is fought and if we have lost and if it is a lost cause. The war is fought with the men and women on the ground who are fighting for this country every single minute. If the soldiers in Iraq beleive that war is worth fighting and that we truly are making a difference and winning, then that is good enough for me.

 

Iraq is fighting for this nation, Iraq is the central front on the war on terror, and Iraq is the central in the fight against Islamic extremism. It boils down to a simple fact, you either fight them over there on their soil with our military, or you fight them here on our shores with our civilians on the front line. By fighting them in the middle east you are keeping the terrorists on the run, you are making it harder for them to attack us, and in that sense we are winning the War on Terror. Someone has to give the Bush administration credit for the fact that we have not been attacked in more then 5 years. You may not like Bush and you may not like the way he is running this country or steering it, but he is the commander-in-chief, he is the one who makes the tough decisions, he is the one who protects this country, he is the one that is protecting are way of life. You may not like man, but you respect the office and the power it holds.

All they do is criticize and not a single one of them has come up with a good idea that could actually be implemented.

 

All of this is in opposition to the good ideas being implemented now I presume?