U.S. hands main war base, Saddam palaces back to Iraq

[n2doc]

Jim Loney
Reuters
4:43 a.m. CST, December 2, 2011


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military returned its biggest base in Iraq to the government on Friday, a huge compound near Baghdad airport that housed the American war operations centre and hosted a captive Saddam Hussein before his execution.

Victory Base Complex, a site ringed by 42 kilometers (27 miles) of blast walls and razor wire, was the U.S. command centre for the Iraq war almost from the moment American troops entered the capital and pulled down Saddam's statue in 2003.

The handover of Victory Base marks a major milestone in the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as Washington consolidates its presence in Baghdad at its huge embassy on the Tigris River in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Only 12,000 troops remain, down from a peak of about 170,000 at the height of the war. Almost all of the remaining forces are due to leave Iraq by the end of this year, except for a small contingent of under 200 attached to the U.S. embassy.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-iraq-withdrawal-basetre7b10lr-20111202,0,6167318.story

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. What delicious irony. Handing over a base called "Victory" in a war we lost.

[Johnyawl]

2. We lost the war?

-insurgency defeated.
-Iraq remains one country
-Saddam Hussien is gone, along with his Ba'ath party
-a moderate, democratically elected government is in charge
-Iraqi army has assumed responsibilty for their security
-US oil companies control the lions share of the Iraqi oil.

That looks like a win to me.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. So, was the result worth the effort, lives, and expense?

The "insurgency" defeated? Define "The insurgency".
Iraq remains one country. It was one country before we invaded it.
Saddam Hussein is gone, along with his Baath party. So?
A moderate government elected. So?
Iraqi army has assumed responsibility for their security. The Iraqi Army was responsible for the Iraq's security before we invaded.
US Oil companies control the lions share of of the Iraqi oil. Yay, Exxon and capitalism!!

You left out the part about the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, the wasted lives of the American cannon-fodder sent to fight a war for oil, the almost trillion dollars wasted there, the loss of freedoms here due to the "war on terror".

If we keep "winning" wars like this we'll be a broke, near third world, military dictatorship.