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On the five year anniversary of the war in Iraq, there are several important things to keep in mind. These are trying times for America and the world, and we face some of the toughest situations we've ever encountered. So how did end up in colossal mess?

First, we have to remember that our country was led into war under false pretense. Bad intelligence and/or stubbornness (or a combination of both) is what got us into Iraq in the first place. Our president sold the country on the idea of going to war based on the assumption that we would find that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. As we later came to find out, none were present.

So, after the government realized that no WMD would be found, they began to spin the reason we went to war. Suddenly we were rooting out Al-Qaeda. But here's the odd part about that argument: all evidence showed that there weren't actually any Al-Qaeda in Iraq at the time we invaded. Sure, many came after to attack our troops, but the president took is eye off Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, who is still at large today. Experts were telling this to the president, but he once again proved his obstinacy, and continued to the war.

The fact is, as an American people we were duped into war, and once we realized we were duped, we were duped again into staying for five years. It's a sad truth, and one that makes it highly unlikely that history will judge George Bush with much kindness. Unfortunately, I don't believe that will matter one bit to the man.

Now, any reasonable person knows that we can't just suddenly withdraw our troops from Iraq tomorrow. George Bush will be handing a foreign affairs nightmare, to put it mildly, to the next president.

My hope is that he or she can find an intelligent, sensible way to get our troops out of Iraq without allowing the country to crumble into chaos. We need to think about the everyday Iraqi citizens who just want to go to work and raise a family and worship their God. We thrust war upon many of them, and we can't just bail out and leave them to fend for themselves.

The next president will undoubtedly have a giant mess to clean up left behind by failed policy after failed policy of this current administration. It will be a struggle to extract our troops from the chaos and war in Iraq, but it is a task that must be executed before more money is wasted and more lives are lost.

Learn more about this author, Sean Curtis.
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