According to recent opinion polls, a large majority of Iraqis believe that the U.S. military has no intention to leave Iraq, and that it would stay even is asked by the Iraqi government to leave.
The general election's taking place today in Iraq, so I guess that means we're one step closer to being there for another 10 years.
I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard.
It is not our place to decide who should lead the Iraqi people. If Saddam [Hussein] leaves or has to be forced out of power and a new regime brought in, a new leadership brought in, I am confident it will be some combination of people inside the country and outside the country.
The withdrawal that Congress is debating now will only effect whether we leave somewhat gracefully or in complete panic and humiliation. Sistani has already made the decision. The Sunnis will not be coming back into the Iraqi government. The die is cast. The civil war will continue. George W. Bush will leave office a complete embarrassment. And he still won't know what happened to him.
The Iraqi government will try and retake some of the cities have that been captured by ISIS. That means the Shiite government dropping bombs on civilian areas, on Sunni cities. There will likely be a response with car bombings here in Baghdad, and this could be a long fight.
The Nisour Square shooting is a signature point in the Iraq war, one that inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad and contributed to the impression that Americans were reckless and unaccountable. The Iraqi government wanted to prosecute the security contractors in Iraq, but the American government refused to allow it.
We owe our troops more than rhetoric; we owe them a real plan. The Administration has yet to put forward a strategy for achieving stability in Iraq, ending the conflict, and handing over sovereignty to the people of Iraq and the new Iraqi government.
This election is a critical step in that overall plan - transforming the Iraqi government into a fully constitutional one, able to secure its own borders and ensure the safety of its citizens.
That the Iraqi Government is considering a political deal granting amnesty to insurgents who have attacked or killed American service members is not just shocking - the idea of amnesty for insurgents is an outrage.
Similarly, establishing a firm timeline for bringing our troops home could accelerate the development of Iraqi security forces and deepen their commitment to defending their own country and their own government.
Second, the resolution contains the blatantly false assertion that negotiating a timeline for bringing U.S. troops home with the Iraqi government undermines U.S. national security. Such a statement shows a misunderstanding of the enemy we face in Iraq.
The PMF should be loyal only to Iraq, not to anyone else: loyal to Iraqi official institutions, the commander in chief in the country, rather than political parties or any other force outside or inside Iraq.
We are at war to liberate Iraq, to protect the people of the United States and other countries from the devastating impact of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction being used by terrorists or the Iraqi government to kill thousands of innocent civilians.
If responsibility is not in the hands of the Iraqi government, then I consider the responsibility for this event lies with the occupation forces which should either leave immediately or according to a timetable.
January 30th will be a historic day for the Middle East and the world. The Iraqi people will take the next step toward a free and democratic society as they place their votes for a transitional Iraqi government.
Insurgents have capitalized on popular resentment and anger towards the United States and the Iraqi government to build their own political, financial and military support, and the faith of Iraqi citizens in their new government has been severely undermined.
What we're hearing from everyone is that they understand that Saddam Hussein is a threat. They understand that he's been a threat for a long time.
The kind of Iraq that emerges from all of this is ultimately out of our hands.
The proximate cause of Iraq's unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian, and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011.
People don't know much about what's going on on the ground in Iraq: what you see in the media is heavily censored.
History will eventually depict as legitimate the efforts of the Iraqi resistance to destabilise and defeat the American occupation forces and their imposed Iraqi collaborationist government.
The people in Iraq lived essentially good lives. They had brilliant health and education systems. Saddam actually created an incredible infrastructure in a very difficult country, but they were a Mafia family. If you said anything against that regime or that family you would be killed instantly.
We won when we toppled Saddam. That was the only clear goal of this war, to topple the Iraqi government. It took about 10 minutes.
The time frame is very small to disarm the militia, to bring about a security situation in which the governing council, the 24 Iraqis or however many others they appoint, can govern the country.
