Day One

On the first full day of the Obama presidency he met with General Petraeus and the joint chiefs of staff to establish an exit strategy from Iraq. It seems hard to believe that we have now occupied Iraq for six years, a mere six years after our former President said, "mission accomplished." For the record, on March 1, 2003 Bush said, 'mission accomplished," since than 4,090 Americans have been killed. We have lost 4,229 Americans to date in this war, with a total wounded count of 30,960. These numbers are staggering because no seems to know what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq. We went to war with Iraq because there was "a gathering nuclear cloud" and the CIA assured us there would be weapons of mass destruction. I do not blame Bush or Clinton or the FBI for the catastrophic errors in intelligence on finding WMDs. It did seem like the right thing to do at the time and I fully supported the war. When Bush began to change the reason for going to Iraq, insisting it was part of an endless, "war on terror" that is when his credibility fell apart. I believe that if Bush would have been open and honest with the American people about Iraq his poll numbers would not have been at historic lows. Now it is up too Obama to deal with the "Mission not accomplished in Iraq." The only way to go from here is to establish a timetable and make the Iraq people responsible for their own future. If they want to continue killing and blowing people up than they can, I just do not want one more American to die in Iraq. I do want one more American to die because I do not know what we are fighting for.