Mitt Romney Flip-Flops On Iraq

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mitt Romney, speaking on Wednesday to NBC News' Chuck Todd, seemed to shift positions on the Iraq War.

As highlighted by New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait, Romney explained to Todd, "If we knew at the time of our entry into Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction, if somehow we had been given that information, obviously we would not have gone in."

PLUS: Another Mitt Switch -- On Bin Laden

"Welcome Home"

 

As Iraq war ends, Obama welcomes troops home

 

 

 

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — More than three years after he campaigned against the Iraq war near this Army post, President Obama returned Wednesday to hail the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops who fought to establish the “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq” that America is leaving behind this month.

With his wife, Michelle, by his side, Obama marked the United States’ imminent departure from Iraq by telling hundreds of service members, many clad in fatigues and maroon berets signifying active airborne status, that the war was a “source of great controversy” at home. As a U.S. senator, Obama opposed the decision to invade Iraq and railed against the conflict in a 2008 campaign speech in nearby Fayetteville.

U.S. War in Iraq Declared Officially Over (Cased the Colors)

BAGHDAD — The United States military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq on Thursday even as violence continues to plague the country and the Muslim world remains distrustful of American power.

In a fortified concrete courtyard at the airport in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thanked the more than one million American service members who have served in Iraq for “the remarkable progress” made over the past nine years but acknowledged the severe challenges that face the struggling democracy.

“Let me be clear: Iraq will be tested in the days ahead — by terrorism, and by those who would seek to divide, by economic and social issues, by the demands of democracy itself,” Mr. Panetta said. “Challenges remain, but the U.S. will be there to stand by the Iraqi people as they navigate those challenges to build a stronger and more prosperous nation.”

The muted ceremony stood in contrast to the start of the war in 2003 when an America both frightened and emboldened by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, sent columns of tanks north from Kuwait to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

As of last Friday, the war in Iraq had claimed 4,487 American lives, with another 32,226 Americans wounded in action, according to Pentagon statistics.

U.S. gives Camp Victory to the Iraqis - POLITICO.com Print View

U.S. gives Camp Victory to the Iraqis - POLITICO.com Print View: "Camp Victory, a huge military base which once served as the headquarters for all U.S. military operations in Iraq, was handed over to Iraqi control on Friday.

“The base is no longer under U.S. control and is under the full authority of the government of Iraq,” said U.S. military spokesman Col. Barry Johnson, according to the AP.

At its height the base was home to as many as 40,000 troops and 30,000 contractors, reports ABC."

'via Blog this'

It's about time!! - video

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Un-Bush

As the article states, “Compare the two presidents.”

Compare the two presidents. One unleashed a war in Afghanistan he then left to languish, and sparked an unjustified war in Iraq, that became a catastrophe of mass death and chaos. He both maximally antagonized the Arab and Muslim world and didn't even score a major victory against the enemy. In many ways, Bush gave al Qaeda an opening in Iraq where it never had one before, and allowed its key leadership to escape at Tora Bora. The torture program, meanwhile, fouled up our intelligence while destroying our moral standing in the world.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/the-un-bush.html

The Mayors Have Had Enough of These Useless, Costly Wars « SpeakEasy

The Mayors Have Had Enough of These Useless, Costly Wars « SpeakEasy: "The Afghanistan War costs American taxpayers more than $2 billion a week at a time when communities are falling apart, and our mayors are fed up. On Monday, the United States Conference of Mayors is expected to pass a resolution calling for a speedy end of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars so we can use those funds here at home. The mayors are exactly right."

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: U.S. Spending on Iraq and Afghanistan by Month, Week, Day, Hour, Minute, & Second

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: U.S. Spending on Iraq and Afghanistan by Month, Week, Day, Hour, Minute, & Second

U.S. Haggled to Find Takers for Detainees From Guantánamo

I kind of agree with the micro chip?

Last year, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed an unorthodox way to return Guantánamo Bay prisoners to a chaotic country like Yemen without fear that they would disappear and join a terrorist group.

The king told a top White House aide, John O. Brennan, that the United States should implant an electronic chip in each detainee to track his movements, as is sometimes done with horses and falcons.

“Horses don’t have good lawyers,” Mr. Brennan replied.

Coming home a different person - MULTIMEDIA

Survivors'
stories

Meet three soldiers and two Marines with
traumatic brain injury, hear their stories and see how their recoveries are progressing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/traumatic-brain-injury/#/home/

'IT CHANGES WHO WE ARE'

'IT CHANGES WHO WE ARE': "The doctor begins with an apology because the questions are rudimentary, almost insultingly so. But Robert Warren, fresh off the battlefield in Afghanistan and a surgeon's table, doesn't seem to mind.

Yes, he knows how old he is: 20. He knows his Army rank: specialist. He knows that it's Thursday, that it's June, that the year is 1020. Quickly, he corrects the small stumble: 'It's 2010.' He knows that his wife is Brittanie, that she's due with their first child any day now, and that they 'got married two to three weeks before I went to that country.'

Stumble No. 2: 'That country.'

David Williamson doesn't let it slide. "Which country?"

No End in Sight - movie

A U.S. 'legacy of waste' in Iraq

The $53-billion reconstruction effort is not without its successes. But poor planning, violence and a failure to consult Iraqis derailed many projects, which may offer lessons in Afghanistan.

Reporting from Khan Bani Saad, Iraq —

The shell of a prison that will never be used rises from the desert on the edge of this dusty town north of Baghdad, a hulking monument to the wasted promise of America's massive, $53-billion reconstruction effort in Iraq.

Construction began in May 2004 at a time when U.S. money was pouring into the country. It quickly ran into huge cost overruns. Violence erupted in the area, and a manager was shot dead in his office. The Iraqi government said it didn't want or need the prison. In 2007 the project was abandoned, but only after $40 million of U.S. taxpayer money had been spent.

In Iraq War, Soldiers Say They Had a Job to Do

AWESOME ARTICLE

Staff Sgt. Lucas C. Trammell, a tank gunner with the Third Infantry Division, fought his way into Baghdad in 2003. He was back in 2005, abandoning the tank for foot patrols in a very unsafe Ramadi, and again in 2007 as bodyguard for a battalion commander in Baghdad.

He has killed the enemy and lost friends. He has sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. (“The Army’s gotten a lot better about letting you put your hand up,” he explained.)

He is back in Iraq for a fourth time, part of a force of only 50,000 no longer engaged in combat as of Aug. 31. He is one of thousands of soldiers and officers for whom the legacy of Iraq, like Afghanistan, has been a recalibration of what it means to be an American at war today.

The Third Infantry Division has spent more than four years in all in a war that has lasted seven and a half — and may not yet be over. These soldiers, far more than any other Americans, bear the personal and professional burdens of a conflict that has lost what popular support it had at home.

To those fighting it, the war in Iraq is not a glorious cause or, as the old advertisement put it, an adventure.

Operation “The Last Patrol” - video

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was crossed the Kuwait-Iraq border on before dawn today. (check AP report by Rebecca Santana).

 

Breaking News! Last US Combat Troops Leave Iraq Today

The last U.S. combat troops are pulling out of Iraq tonight. MSNBC is reporting live as the last Stryker Brigade is driving out of Iraq.

Rachel Maddow is live in Baghdad. There are 50,000 non-combat troops remaining, but the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom is ending at this hour.

More soon.

Read More at this link.

SPC Javorn Drummond

Javorn Drummond wants what he never had. He says it's something called ...
howtofoldaflag.com
Watch Gunner's Palace

Gunner's Palace

Return from War — Audio

There is growing concern about the number of veterans who are returning from war without work. Some National Guardsmen who expect to come back to a job find they've been laid off. There's even a bill before Congress calling for more training and more assistance for vets. Javorn Drummond spent almost five years in the army. He served in Iraq and ever since he got back, he's struggled to find his footing. After two years of unemployment, Javorn found himself living in a trailer with no heat or water. He was working at a hog processing plant. But Javorn has recently made a change, he is using his GI Bill to earn a degree.



Return from War —

After long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military begins to treat mental injuries as combat wounds -- washingtonpost.com

The 300-pound bomb blasted Marine Staff Sgt. James Ownbey's mine-resistant truck so high that it snapped power lines before it slammed to the dusty ground in western Iraq.

Ownbey, knocked briefly unconscious by the blast, awoke to suffocating black smoke and a swirling cloud of dirt. He felt for the vehicle's door, then stumbled into the sunlight where he was joined by the rest of his woozy, three-man crew. Their bodies were sore, but they looked fine.

After long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military begins to treat mental injuries as combat wounds -- washingtonpost.com

Wounded Soldiers Return to Iraq

FORWARD OPERATING BASE NORMANDY, Iraq — Soldiers have often returned to old battlefields, to honor fallen comrades and to exorcise persistent demons. British soldiers go back to the Falklands. Normandy cemeteries are on many V.F.W. and American Legion itineraries. Vietnam veterans can even get package tours now to the places where they were stationed.

Now, Americans wounded in the Iraq war are being ferried back to the scenes where they were maimed to help achieve psychological closure, the first time such visits have been tried while a war is still in progress.

The seven-day program, called Operation Proper Exit, has been kept quiet previously, partly because returning to a combat zone is considered a delicate experiment. For the eight wounded men who returned to Iraq this week, including five amputees and one blinded soldier, the hope is that returning to places many of them left while unconscious or in agony might reassure them that their losses have been worth it.