Iraq: Massive Hemorrhage

The Iraq War will go down in history as the “Republican War.”

It was initiated by a Republican President in 2003 based on faulty intelligence, unrealistic expectations and false pretenses. The prosecution of the war has been fraught with mistakes, misjudgments and misrepresentations that have led to the mounting deaths, now greater than 3100 Americans, and tens of thousands of Americans with wounds, injuries and disabilities. Many of these disabilities, physical and psychological, are permanent and will require life-long care.

This war can be characterized as a continuing massive hemorrhage with no end in sight and without any possibility of a positive transfusion. The Republicans in Congress hold on for dear life to the notion that we will win. They facilitated this war over the past four years as the majority party in the last Congress, and now as the minority party, based on rules which have stifled debate in the Senate. Their actions and pro-war zeal have facilitated the worsening of the hemorrhage that is symptomatic of the dire state of Iraq. Republicans in the Congress have played a major role in prolonging the war and escalating the costs to America in lives, resources, potential and deviation from dealing with major needs at home. The massive hemorrhage of resources which continues will never be recouped.

As a result, the United States has entered an era of worsening political strife where both major political parties relate to each other in an atmosphere of mutual mistrust, disdain, efforts to intentionally discredit the other for political purposes and outright misrepresentations of the facts. America