...On top of all the problems the "coalition" have already, the lack of WMD and the increasing guerilla war, it now looks as if the UN, Red Cross, Medicins Sans Frontiers and other aid agencies will be "scaling back" their activities in the country. The attack on the UN a few months ago coupled with a recent spate of suicide car-bombings, including one aimed at the Red Cross, have caused a major rethink by some agencies that have been in Iraq for more than 20 years...

only takes a few assholes to ruin it for everyone else..

no joke...

I can't blame the aid agencies for packing up... they are there to give help, not get bombed and shot at.

Something of a backward step for America and Britain tho...? All that rubbish about assisting the ordinary Iraqi in the street, ridding the country of (non-existant) WMD and establishing a democracy, man, it all stinks to high heaven... As usual, it's the man on the street in Iraq who's paying the price for heavy handed American intervention...

its a backwards step for Iraq Si Dread

no, the persons paying THE price are the coalition soldiers who are losing their lives.

This will only make the dependance on the american military (which will not leave) higher for Iraqi citizens... could have the opposite effect the terrorists planned on

I dunno, 150 dead in 6 months ain't that bad...! If you assume hundreds wounded as well, starts to sound a bit worse... But then Iraqi dead are in their hundreds, and injured number thousands, not even counting those killed directly during the bombing. Also consider that many wounded Iraqi's are still in need of proper care and many could be living with serious, agonasing injuries because ot the countires inablitity to cope, whereas injured Americans would be given the best, promptest treatment possible...!

On top of that it's American SOLDIERS getting killed, guys who've chosen that path. Iraqi women, children and generally innocents are those suffering there. I dunno, see it how you like...

There needed to be some form of change there. I'm not sure we chose the best way but if something hadn't been done, the same regime Saddam had would have gotten worse under his much more terrifying sons.

Conquering territory and people for your own use doesn't come cheap. What, did you think they were just going to let us walk in and take their shit over?

It would have been better to go after the ruling faction with a little more oomph the first time around, instead of making the already-suffering Iraqi population suffer more through sanctions, followed by a full scale invasion.

they pretty much did. it's the 'foreign fighters' that seem to be causing most the real fighting.

It doesnt matter if it was 1 or 1 million.. its always bad..its on more life that doesnt go home.. someones son, daughter, brother, sister, dad, mother, uncle, aunt, wife, husband, best friend, boyfriend,girlfriend or cousin they will never see alive again..

death is pretty fucking hardcore.. and you dont realize it till its all up in your personal life.

Firstly, yes, Saddam & his sons were no party. Yes, they had to go... BUT no, America should not have invaded there were alternatives no matter how unpalatable...

Death and suffering is terrible, I DO feel for Americans (and British) losing their family and friends. But I feel considerably more sorrow for ordinary Iraqi's who, on top of many years of oppression under Saddam, a decade of sanctions and multiple wars, and now have to live through this disastrous situation.

what alternatives were there? maybe we could have waited 12 years for Saddam to chill out or leave.....oh wait...tried it, didn't work.

and the Iraqi civilians are not being targeted by coalition soldiers, they are getting caught in the cross fire when the coalition troops are defending themselves from attacks by baath party loyalists, etc

I'm not suggesting for a second that civilians are being targetted by US forces, though I'm sure some would and there is unfortunately no smoke without fire... It's the fact that America is THERE, that's what's making things dangerous for civilians. They are now in a war-zone, on the field between America and Iraqi/Al Qaeda terrorists...

The alternatives were...
1) Wait another year or two for inspectors to actually complete their work, then...
2) with UN backing and greater manpower and experience bring about a rapid regime change and... most importantly...
3) Go out of their way to secure civilian support by seriously and adequetely and quickly attending humanitarily.

Instead we got this "semi-legal" un-supported America versus Iraq/Al Qaede going on, and civilians are just canon fodder. Now I'm not saying life under Saddam was any better but it probably was, coz 37 people died the other day, the only time Iraq suffered that kind of death toll in a day was when we were bombing to enforce the no-fly zones.

It just all looks so 20th century to me, basically a backwoods, no-thinking-in-with-the-fists way of dealing with problems... Didn't we ever learn that violence creates violence... There is ALWAYS an alternative to violence, not to believe that, I'm afraid to say, is doing the devils work for him

dude, youre an idiot... its a million times worse if a million people die then one...

i think war is a part of life and we must deal with it, after all, we didnt get this great country by peace means. One can strive for peace, but peace equals perfection, and we all know man is no where near perfect. My only comment on this war, and many other wars, is that i have no comment. Its just the way the cookie crumbles.

Yeah but for americans death is okay just as long as its happening anywhere else.

i'm ready for a " real " red dawn! i've been arming myself way before 9/11.

it is what it is

A few points to think about:

A)Saddam was NEVER a threat to begin with
b)Our Goverment fucked up by supporting him in the first place in the Reagan years
c)Bush and Co. caused Mass hysteria by out right lying to the American people to prop up this war to begin with.
d)There are countries ten times as worse than Iraq that we do business with on a regular basis.
e)We had zero international support besides the Brits, and a hand full of other countries who did little or nothing in the war effort.
f)We still haven't found Saddam, which I think is a little ironic considering how much intelligence we have on the guy.
g)The money/effort we are using to put this country back in order is taking away from other legitimate world affairs. If you don't believe this, you are a fucking idiot.
h)We still haven't caught or dismantled a large portion of the terrorist network(which our own government created btw in the Reagan/Bush Sr. era)
This is resulting in a cat and mouse game that will never end, until we get the people that started it(Bush/Cheney out of power).

Was it good to get him out? Sure. Was it smart to do so? Not really. Having no legitimate support internationally, not even from Nato for Christs sakes, put a huge burden on America, not only financially, but in the costs of lives. Not to mention, the many who return missing arms or legs and such.

I feel bad for the troops who think they are doing their job for freedom, when in reality, they are doing this for another Halliburton contract.

amen brother

America wasn't the only one to support Saddam's regime, but America went back in. He's not a threat to you, but he's a threat to his own people. The question in my mind is whether or not it's viable in the long run. A second 'democratic' nation in the Middle East can act to destabilize neighboring Iran, which is generally considered to be a greater threat than Iraq. This fact alone is worth considering.

The oil situation is somewhat pathetic however, since we're isolating ourselves from the rest of the world by choosing to isolate non participant nations and keep them from any oil. It may be appropriate considering they didn't assist in the war efforts but simultaneously it makes things much tougher on the U.S. This is even moreso when one considers that because of these actions Russia is going to demand quicker reparations, which means a bulk of Iraq profits will go to Russia before the Iraqi or the U.S. people see any form of economic effects.

However the Middle East tends to be much more rigid and unless otherwise affected it could literally maintain this course for years to come. Because of our current policies, this is unacceptable.

Morally I'd have to say helping the Iraqi people was the right thing to do. However at the same time, it seems very hypocritical to do something for them and yet not in other nations. Obviously it comes down to what the U.S. had to gain in both short and long term objectives, especially in shaking up the political situation. The immediate costs to us, however, are travesties.

As for the U.S. creating a lot of the problems of our modern day, yes we did so. However the policies occurring at those times were aimed at cubing the more looming threat of expansion of Communist policies, something that was taken to an extreme obviously, not only overseas but even in Latin America.

And China's regime is not a threat to their own people? North Korea? Iran? Saudi Arabia? There are tons of regimes that are threats to their population. It doesn't justify a war imo. If the Iraqi people were really against Saddam we would see them helping us instead of hindering our every attempt to better their country. They hate being occupied by a foreign country more than they hate Saddam. If anyone should know about this it would be the Brits, which have a history of causing revolts when they occupy other countries.

If we would have toppled the Saudis, I think we would have had more justification than going after Iraq, being that they are the primary supporters of Terrorism in the world. Not to mention, the 9/11 incident. But Bush is in bed with the Saudis because of his personal financial ties so we do nothing and our country pays the price because of it.

On the issue of democracy, you bring democracy by showing your way of life is more appealing than the alternative, not by forcing it on someone. You are just asking for problems when you take this approach.