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Finding a particular instance in the history of our country where so much money was wasted because of faulty intelligence is nearly impossible. We may never know the reasons why President Bush pushed so hard for invasion when all reasonable evidence suggests he knew intelligence was flawed. With nearly 4000 of our young men and women dead and conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties starting around 1,000,000, not to mention the monetary cost of the war, can we justify this bloodbathas glorious? The answer is no.

After nearly five years of continuous combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom, The bush administration has done everything within its power to attempt to minimize any negative impact the war may have on its reputation in the media. Whether "ending combat operations" under a banner touting "Mission Accomplished" or hyping small scale military operations as the be-all and end-all of the war, our president has done nothing more that try to cover up his mistake of invading Iraq in the first place.

Americans were given a "glimmer of hope" in THE SURGE. Hyped for months and relatively poorly executed in a few weeks with a minimal impact on insurgent activity, the surge was cited by Bush as a sign that the war would soon draw to a close. That was many months ago. We still have tens of thousands of husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters proudly serving their country, thousands of miles away from home. If the lackluster war plan of the United States continues unchanged, they will remain on this desolate corner of the globe for an indefinite period of time.

The bottom line is not only did our president overstep his power in dragging our country into the quagmire we refer to as Iraq, but also 5 years and 4000 deaths later the country is worse off than it started. Insurgent activities against U.S. troops have claimed more American lives that Saddam's crippled regime ever would have inflicted on our country. The obvious difference between pre and post Saddam Iraq is that now our name is on it and any negative events involving Iraq hurt our reputation. Now that the war is off the front page, our country is doomed to spend even longer fighting the overzealous actions of the Bush administration due to a lack of motivation for policy makers to bring a prompt end to the Iraq conflict.

Learn more about this author, Craig Simoneau.
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