Who's asking? Is it the International community that doesn't have the courage to help another nation that's desperately in need of help? Is it a bunch of nay-sayers back home that would never even think about stepping foot outside of their ivory towers? Is it the all-knowing media that seems to think that the limited coverage they get out of Baghdad somehow makes them experts? Or, could it be the folks in Iraq that can't wait to seize power once the Coalition Forces are gone?I'm sorry, but none of these people actually have enough information to give a truly informed opinion of when the US should leave.
The International Community
A lot of other nations (that aren't exactly innocent themselves) look at the invasion of any nations, no matter how altruistic the intentions are as a bad thing. They feel that somehow moving the rest of the countries on earth toward a one-world government is the best way to go of course, they still haven't figured out how to get along with their own neighbors. They see the conditions in other nations and say how bad things are, but when asked how they would deal with it, they throw up their hands and say "Well, it's not really our problem, now is it?"
Nay-Sayers
A lot of folks seem to think that reading a few random accounts off of the internet somehow makes them an endless font of wisdom about Iraq. They seem to think that conditions were somehow better before Saddam was forced out of office. If this were the case, why are so many Iraqi people happy with the new freedoms they enjoy?
The Media
The twenty-four hour news networks remember how high the ratings were for the news back in '91 during the liberation of Kuwait. They remember how for 42 days everyone was glued to their Tvs to hear about the latest developments from Baghdad, Bahrain, and Kuwait City. It was a great time for them. So, when 2003 rolled around they knew that war was inevitable. Despite showing nothing but articles of other nations saying how much they didn't want war, they knew that THEY did. They had cameras set up all over the country to catch the action. Reporters were embedded with regular troops to film everything as it occurred. They were living large until the ratings started to slip. The war wasn't as profitable as it was before and now they needed a new angle. What better way to get everyone to keep watching than to bash anything and everything having to do with the war. They could show villages that had running water for the first time in decades, but it was much better to show villages that had been flattened by collateral damage. They want us to leave badly because once we're gone, the nation will fall into disarray and they'll have new material to show every night. And the best part, is they'll have new pariahs to blame everything on.
The Iraqi "leadership"
While many Iraqi leaders are grateful that their country is no longer in the grip of absolute fear and many are happy that their money can go to actually improving their government instead of being funneled into an unnecessarily large military, there are still those that loved their positions of power during the last regime. They liked having everyone they liked killed just because they followed a different sect of Islam or were of a race different than them. They sill live by their old prejudices and know that the Coalition Forces only tolerate them because local leadership is needed. They really want us gone so that they can use all of the great equipment we gave them to impose their own order upon the fledgling nation.
Whether you like it or not, whether you feel that the war was justified or not, the U.S. and its coalition allies are in Iraq for the long haul. They can't just pack up and go without making sure that the nation can stand on its own otherwise, they're just opening the door for another Saddam (or worse!) to move in and bring back the same oppressive conditions that were in place before the Coalition Forces arrived in 2003.