Deployed SSGT`s letter to Stripes inre: US troop escalation in Iraq

[lebkuchen]

The headline in today`s Stars & Stripes is Army readying 10,000 troops for Iraq if requested, DOD official says. Here is one deployed soldier`s immediate response, excerpted:

Troop increase decision made

I hear that our commander in chief is making a strategic review of our policies in Iraq, but since when has the president made his decisions based on objective information? How is this strategic review different than the intelligence reviews made prior to the invasion of Iraq — the ones linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and Sept. 11?

The president failed in the invasion of Iraq by first making the decision to go and then picking facts and making assessments only to support his case. Among the facts chosen were that we would be greeted as liberators, the support of the international community was an unnecessary luxury, the Iraqis would assume responsibility for policing themselves and that oil revenues would cover the majority of our expenses. These were by no means insignificant oversights, and they have cost us thousands of lives, billions of dollars and have reduced our international standing...