Iraq - Five Years After the Invasion - VOA Story

The US military had little difficulty toppling Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. Yet the post-invasion challenges in Iraq — promoting democracy, rebuilding infrastructure, providing security, beating back an anti-American insurgency and defusing the Sunni-Shiite conflict — have tested the limits of the armed forces.

Almost any civilian would be impressed by the daily lunch formation at West Point, the nation's most elite training college for Army officers. Seemingly endless lines of officer cadets — dressed in the charcoal gray uniforms that have been traditional at West Point for much of its 206-year history — march to their oaken dining hall.




But the counter-insurgency war cadets are being trained to wage in Iraq differs in crucial ways from conventional wars fought by West Point graduates like Dwight D. Eisenhower, who commanded Allied Forces in World War Two, and Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union Army during the Civil War.

Ever the since the invention of warfare, it's been a given that when your enemy shoots on you, you fire back. But when the snipers and other unseen enemies in Iraq strike, they often melt back into a civilian population the American army is charged with protecting.

Some experts say the fight against al-Qaida is easier now, since many groups that once shielded the terrorists now betray them — often for American cash. But Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Farrell, who chairs West Point's Military History Division, says his own experience with the motives of America's various enemies in Iraq — from Mahdi militia members, to disaffected Baathist party members, to organized kidnapping rings to foreign fighters and agents — has made even the term 'al-Qaida' too broad to be of much use.

While knowledge of Iraq's shifting political landscape is essential, so is being able to protect one's truck convoy from improvised explosive devices or to identify a potential suicide bomber at military checkpoints.

At five years and counting since the invasion of Iraq, the American army is still on a multi-billion dollar learning curve. But it has maintained its storied "can do" attitude. "We've got a mission," says one cadet, "and we say 'yes!' We will figure out a way to get it done."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Iraq
• War
• Army
• Sunni
• Shiite
• Insurgent
• military
• invasion

[wickedseb]

@umhalil I am not debating about all these complicated issues, it does not lead anywhere and brings conflict which I want to avoid. The international force in Afghanistan is essential but will have to leave...

[wickedseb]

@umhalil why not?

[zippyman818]

@USNARox2008 The Middle East has a long history of strife, war and struggle across borders and between different people. To say that the Middle East had "..no problems until Western aggression" is to ignore thousands of years of history and tradition. Umhalil is wrong in this regard.

[wickedseb]

I feel bad for these good people going in Iraq in a war that was obviously a mistake. Bush is gone and it is good. I give all my support to the soldiers in Afghanistan may they be americans, british, french (my mates) or others.

[doggiestyle247]

the jews wants to go war with iraq. anthrax...the jews spread it...

[USNARox2008]

"Solving the problems of the middle east... like eating soup with a fork."