As Veterans Day approaches and America plans to withdraw forces from Iraq, it’s important to remember the history and conflict behind the war to properly honor our servicemen and women who gave so much to accomplish their mission.
The year was 2003, and U.S. Soldier Van Mego stood at a base in Kuwait. He, like thousands of others, awaited deployment into Iraq. He stepped into a room where he could be alone. For half an hour he prayed, meditated and made his peace with God.
Over his next three tours in the Middle East, he was never scared for himself again. “I never prayed for safety, I only prayed for the safety of my family back home…I knew what I got into when I signed up for this job. So for me, to pray for safety seemed kind of selfish at the moment,” Mego said.
The Iraq war has been a tremendous test on our servicemen and women. Aside from the physical strain of fighting a war against an undefined enemy, there has been a mental struggle. Many soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress, depression and other mental health problems. Many commit suicide.  Mego, like many soldiers, began his career believing in the reasons for the war. He believed our politicians when they told him about weapons of mass destructions Saddam Hussein was hiding.
“Either it was a failure of intelligence or it was a lie to begin with,” Mego said. Faced with this reality, many soldiers have a hard time rectifying the dissonance between the facts and what they were told. One can partially attribute the high rate of veteran suicides to this. “I love the military, but I’m disappointed in the politicians who use the military to obtain their narrow political advantages,” Mego said.
President Obama recently announced that he plans to stick to the time table set forth by President Bush and remove all troops from Iraq by the end of the year. Politicians have reacted harshly to this announcement. The most consistent and probable Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, said leaving Iraq is an “astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women.” Romney believes that America should maintain a presence in Iraq much as it has in other countries, like South Korea and Germany. However, this would go against the expressed wishes of the Iraqi people, who the U.S. supposedly undertook this mission to liberate, protect and honor.
In 2008, during the closing months of his tenure, President Bush signed an agreement to remove all of our soldiers and servicemen by Jan. 1 2012. “A lot of people maybe want us to have permanent bases there, but that’s not a measurement of success,” Mego said. “A measurement of success is leaving Iraq so that Iraqis can stand on their own two feet, so that Iraqis can take care of their own business.”
The removal of troops at the end of this year will signal an end of U.S. involvement in Iraq that stretches nearly 30 years. It began during the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980-88. America provided money, weapons, training and intelligence to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Hussein had condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and signed an alliance with Saudi Arabia. Hussein intended to invade Iran, whom America didn’t like after they had disposed of the leader we approved of: the Shah. It was during this period that the infamous picture of Donald Rumsfeld and Hussein shaking hands emerged. It was also during this time that the United States, according to the Senate Banking Committee, gave the Iraqi government chemical and biological weapons.
After the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq invaded Kuwait. This invasion was the start of the first Gulf War. After this event the U.S. and United Nations imposed sanctions upon Iraq. Because of this embargo anywhere from 170,000 to 1.5 million Iraqis died, many of them children unable to receive the proper medicine. Osama Bin Laden stated that these sanctions were one of the reasons he attacked us on 9/11.
These sanctions were lifted in May of 2003 after the toppling of Hussein’s regime. However, this was not the end of the road for the Iraqi people or for us. The war has cost anywhere from 80,000 to one million Iraqi lives and 4,400 Americans. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated long-term costs to be in the trillion dollar range.
Perhaps, with the end of our military involvement in Iraq and the fate of the country in Iraqi hands, we can finally end this chapter in our shared history.
The standard for victory in Iraq has shifted in the eight years we have been there. It began as a hunt for weapons of mass destruction and then morphed into a mission of regime change and nation building, creating a democracy in Iraq to stand as a model for the region. If this is the final measurement for success in Iraq, that they can stand on their own without aid from our military forces, we must respect their wishes when they tell us it’s time for us to leave.
The fact is, despite what detractors in the political sphere say, Iraq is ready and able to stand on its own. Granted, the major misstep in our policy was dismantling the Iraqi Army in 2003, the Iraqi Security Forces have been called the fastest growing army in the world. According to the “Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq” reports, attacks in Iraq have stabilized and declined to a manageable rate.
With the end of the Iraq War nearing and Veterans Day approaching, it’s important to recognize and honor our veterans for their service. Whether you agree with the war or not, these men and women went above and beyond the call, serving multiple tours and going through hell because it was their job. I hope that they can keep their heads up and remember the good that they’ve done when right wing politicians deride the war as a failure to make short-term political gain. In the end, the only true measurement of the success of the mission will be in the progress and growth of Iraq as country.