As US troops leave Iraq, some ask: Was the war worth it?
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the cost of the war was high, but that troops gave birth to a 'free and sovereign' Iraq. More than 4,400 US service members died in Iraq.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer / December 16, 2011
... “I’ve had people come to me, ‘Why were we there? What did we do? Why did 4,000 die in Iraq? Why did I lose my friend?’ ” says Lt. Col. Mark Rowan, an Air Force chaplain who has served 12 deployments and who has counseled troops returning from Iraq. “We don’t really know the answer to that yet.”
Commanders say it’s a question that they can’t readily answer, either. “My opinion about sacrifice is that it’s a very personal thing,” says Maj. Gen. Russell Handy, the senior US Air Force officer in Iraq. To pronounce whether the war was “worth it,” he says, would mean “putting words in the mouths of family members” who continue to mourn for loved ones ...
We came to give them a democracy,” says Staff Sgt. Donald Rice of the 447th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron. “We gave them a chance at democracy. Was 4,400 lives worth the cost of giving them the chance at democracy?” he wonders ...
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/1216/As-US-troops-leave-Iraq-some-ask-Was-the-war-worth-it
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