Though the White House has announced that the U.S. combat mission in Iraq is over, little seems to have changed for the soldiers stationed in Baghdad and surrounding regions. Army Lt. Daniel McCord, for example, sits in a base in the capital city that has been shelled 28 times since September 1, 2010, the day after "Operations Iraqi Freedom" officially ended. Soldiers watch cars that pass by vigilantly, and fear for their lives when they see children carrying toy guns. Such is the nature of the country in flux, where threats can come from any direction and peace has not even nearly been achieved.
As the U.S. military prepares to depart the country, a look back shows that the Iraq war lasted eight years, cost $750 billion and led to the deaths of 4,400 U.S. troops. And it doesn’t appear that much has actually been settled. Accord to McCord, "Bad guys don’t go away. When we leave, they’ll find another target. I’d be crazy to say it’s safe. Is it better than it was? Yes. But it’s probably still going to take some time for the government of Iraq to establish the security they want. There are still bad guys here doing bad things."
Still, senior officials in the U.S., including military officials, note that Iraq’s 675,000 soldiers, police and other security forces are more than capable of being able to protect the country and will be more adequately prepared by the end of the year. Noted Lt. General Robert Cone, who just ended a tour in Iraq, "You still have an underlying heartbeat right now of violence that is still unacceptable. Those guys [the remaining troops] would argue this is a pretty lethal environment."
As the U.S. military prepares to depart the country, a look back shows that the Iraq war lasted eight years, cost $750 billion and led to the deaths of 4,400 U.S. troops. And it doesn’t appear that much has actually been settled. Accord to McCord, "Bad guys don’t go away. When we leave, they’ll find another target. I’d be crazy to say it’s safe. Is it better than it was? Yes. But it’s probably still going to take some time for the government of Iraq to establish the security they want. There are still bad guys here doing bad things."
Still, senior officials in the U.S., including military officials, note that Iraq’s 675,000 soldiers, police and other security forces are more than capable of being able to protect the country and will be more adequately prepared by the end of the year. Noted Lt. General Robert Cone, who just ended a tour in Iraq, "You still have an underlying heartbeat right now of violence that is still unacceptable. Those guys [the remaining troops] would argue this is a pretty lethal environment."
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