2008-04-21 12 Answers to Questions No One Is Asking About Iraq

2008-04-21 AntiWar Tom Engelhardt \US occupation of Iraq\mainstream media http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=12720 12 Answers to Questions No One Is Asking About Iraq &ldquo;Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in the last year, despite so many reports on the "success" of the president's surge strategy, Americans sense [..] perfectly well [that] Iraq has been unraveling [..] since the invasion of 2003.&rdquo;  Can there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling? And here's the curious thing: Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in the last year, despite so many reports on the "success" of the president's surge strategy, Americans sense this perfectly well. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 56 percent of Americans "say the United States should withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties" and this has, as the Post notes, been a majority position since January 2007, the month that the surge was first announced. Imagine what might happen if the American public knew more about the actual state of affairs in Iraq – and of thinking in Washington. The answers are:   
 * 1) Yes, the war has morphed into the U.S. military's worst Iraq nightmare.
 * No, there was never an exit strategy from Iraq because the Bush administration never intended to leave – and still doesn't.
 * 1) Yes, the United States is still occupying Iraq (just not particularly effectively).
 * 2) Yes, the war was about oil.
 * No, our new embassy in Baghdad is not an "embassy".
 * No, the Iraqi government is not a government.
 * No, the surge is not over.
 * No, the Iraqi army will never "stand up".
 * No, the U.S. military does not stand between Iraq and fragmentation.
 * No, the U.S. military does not stand between Iraq and civil war.
 * No, al-Qaeda will not control Iraq if we leave (and neither will Iran).
 * 1) Yes, some Americans were right about Iraq from the beginning (and not the pundits, either).