Bob Walls, a veteran of Korea and Vietnam, is certain about the right course in Iraq going forward even if, looking backward, he has some doubts.
“I think we have no choice but to keep a large number of troops over there until that government is stabilized and has got the ability to care for itself,” said Walls, 71, a resident of Austin and commander of the American Legion in Texas. “It would be disgraceful for us to pull out now.”
Walls said he believes that the United States, having made the decision to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein’s regime, now has a lasting obligation to keep troops there for the foreseeable future.
But that doesn’t mean Walls agreed with the Bush administration’s decision to intervene in Iraq in the first place.
“I would not have gone in,” he said. “I don’t think the threat was strong enough to commit the troops. But once the troops have been committed, we should do it right.”
Walls also said he has encountered confusion and frustration when talking with friends and colleagues about the Iraq commitment.
“Most of the people I talk to are aware of the casualties and know what’s going on and are not real happy about them, but don’t know what to do to stop it,” he said. “I think in most of the wars we had, at least when we went into them, people felt there was a justification for them. I think this time there was a divided feeling on whether it was a justifiable war.”
–Howard Witt
Improvement might be worth price
When David Palmer, a leader of the Young Republicans in El Paso, Texas, assesses the results of the Iraq war, it may seem a matter of partisan politics. But he says it’s simply a matter of facts.
“Yes, the war has been worth it,” he said. “You look at what Iraq was before the war, and it’s already getting better. Even though there are some soldiers who have lost their lives, it’s worth it in the long run.”
For Palmer, 26, a schoolteacher, the difficulties American troops have encountered in Iraq are outweighed by the success the U.S. has achieved in freeing a ruined country from the grip of a brutal dictator.
“Children are able to go back to school, entrepreneurs are working, people are free to live their lives and make something of themselves now,” Palmer said.
“It’s fantastic that schoolchildren can learn now that Saddam Hussein didn’t invent the world.”
Tom O’Meara, an Austin attorney and former Air Force major, does not agree.
“I’m not sure whether it’s better or worse than it was before in Iraq, but I don’t think anything is worth the price we’ve paid,” said O’Meara, 57.”We have further involved ourselves in aggressive acts against people who already had a bad opinion of us, and that’s bad. A lot of people have gotten killed, and that’s bad.
“I think there’s probably some truth to the fact that Saddam Hussein was pretty oppressive, and eliminating an oppressive dictator has some value. But when we sit here two or three or five years from now, we might not be able to say there’s been any benefit.”
–Howard Witt
