Who do you think is responsible for our failure in Iraq?

No one individual is to blame. There are many factors, many beyond our control, as to cause. Ultimately, we cannot fight their battles for them.

Public forums aren't the right places for Service Members to debate these concerns.

A good website for AAR Iraq and beyond....http://www.usip.org

There are several if not many publications, manuscripts, literature reviews et al...I find this publication interesting...."The Iraq study group report" is an authorized edition for "The Way Forward - A new Approach" 2006, by Baker, James A III, Hamilton, Lee H...with Eagleburger, Lawrence s., Joran Vernon E., Meese, Edwin III., O'Conner, Sandra Day, Panetta, Leon E, Perry, William J., Robb, Charles S. and Simpson, Alan K...Vintage Books, NY. United States Institute of Peace website http://www.usip.org


Based on this book, 142 pages...it does have merit and much credibility as a reactive posture identiying problems and recommendations for the US and partners, however, the book lacked a shared vision approach. Scope creep could have been a factor overall in Iraq...in my opinion.

Batak Obama, Democrats, Liberal isolationist, Iraqis

the president was advised of the danger of invasion but chose to go foeward. That aside, the reality that we liberated a people that did not want to be liberated. The failure to understand that that the various factions that make up the country were never going to come together.
That said, we were highly successful in attacking, seizing , and occuping - you know military stuff, we were quite successful. In short,our failure was in our inabilty to find anyone in iraq that was willing to die, or live for their country

It is reasonable to make the argument that much of the strategy was -- and continues to be -- flawed. Yes, the Iraqi Government has big problems and has certainly not helped -- but if we were basing our strategy on the Iraqi Government being a well-oiled machine, then whose fault is that...theirs or ours? Not saying war strategy is easy, and not saying that hindsight equals wisdom. I'm just making the point.

The failure or on going war was a result of a combination of things. If a status of forces agreement had been able to reached a different outcome would also be in reach. The campaign promises of ending the war in Iraq. Lastly, the first 100 day War when we stormed to Baghdad imagine if we had taken the city in the late 90's.

You'd have to go back to Desert Storm and then you may as well go back to 1968 when Kuwait was still part of Iraq and look at that mess when it became its own country. What's the point of the Arab League? Or UN if they could not prevent the degradation we're seeing now? I think Iraq failed because Syria became a Disney Land destination for jihadists thanks to Al-Assads human rights violations and war crimes. It's regional but we new this going into desert shield and long before. Maybe the interim government should have started re building infrastructure and providing sanitation? The citizens are living amongst the rubble and garbage but they have wireless internet? "Let them have Twitter". When people live like animals they behave as such. Anyway...

The Iraq goverment, they ran and gave up ground.. Ground that we fought so hard to get they just gave it up, with out a fight...billions of dollars to train a army who runs???