Five years on

On March 19, 2003, “President” Bush announced; “My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”

Each year on the anniversary of the US-led invasion, Bush has given a speech full of rhetoric and spin, this year was no exception (HT to Daily Kos):

Year One: “There are still violent thugs and murderers in Iraq, and we're dealing with them.” U.S. Fatalities: 583

Year Two: “Iraq's progress toward political freedom has opened a new phase of our work there.” U.S. Fatalities: 1,522

Year Three: “We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq.” U.S. Fatalities: 2,319

Year Four: “There's been good progress.” U.S. Fatalities: 3,224

Today, Year Five: “No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure ­ but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq .” U.S. Fatalities: 3,990 U.S. Casualties: 40,229

Over the course of five years, Bush has changed his goal of saving the world from (nonexistent) dangers of Iraqi WMD's to a desire to not losing...

Remember; when the war started, the administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government. Five years on, the cost of the war is “roughly $600 billion and counting” per the Pentagon, with economist Joseph Stiglitz putting the “long-term cost at more than $4 trillion” an estimate he says is “excessively conservative.”

And that’s not the only things that supporters of the war have gotten wrong… consider these disastrous quotes:

“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” - President Bush, 10/7/02 (hard to create mushroom clouds without WMD’s, isn’t it?)

“We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03 (Yeah, not so much… and now we’re like the house guests that couldn’t get the hint to leave)

"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals.” - Charles Krauthammer, 4/19/03 (or people that AREN’T lemmings and can use their own brains…)

“[Liberals] can't deny that President Bush has won his two wars, and won them resoundingly.” - Paul Mirengoff, Powerline, 4/26/03 (wanna bet we can’t deny it? The Taliban and al Qaeda are back in force in Afghanistan, and the insurgent violence in Iraq is increasing again…)

And the best ones come from ‘The Decider’’ himself; “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.” - 9/24/02 (I guess that depends on what your definition of ‘fairly easy’ is…)

“We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” 1/22/03 (I refuse to snark this as a means to honor all families that have lost loved ones in this misguided war)

And then there’s this March 24, 2003 quote from the man who vows to continue Bush’s wayward ways in Iraq; Sen. John McCain: “[T]here’s no doubt in my mind, once these people are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators.”

If McCain gets elected, we probably will be in Iraq for 100 more years… if it’s Clinton or Obama, we will start pulling troops out within six months of them taking office… we all know that a complete pullout would do more harm than good, but it’s time to start reigning in the amount of troops we have over there.

Not only would that protect our soldiers, it would also force the Iraqi’s to act and move forward. I think, and this is merely my opinion, that the Iraqi government has been slow in making any progress because they know the US-led coalition is there to prop them up.

We shouldn’t be… not anymore.