Iraq Milestone Pending
The violence continues in Baghdad, Iraq. by Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor Victoria BC (UPI) Oct 23, 2006 In just a few weeks -- on Nov. 28, to be precise -- U.S. involvement in the Iraq war will have lasted a day longer than its participation in World War II. As a reminder, the United States officially entered WWII on Dec. 8, 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the declaration of war, after the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, destroyed much of the American fleet.
The war officially ended on Aug. 15, 1945, on Victory in Japan, or VJ-Day. For the United States, the war lasted three years, seven months and seven days. The war in Europe had ended a few months earlier, on May 8.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq began March 20, 2003, Baghdad time (it was still March 19 in the United States and some sources use March 19 as the official start date). By Nov. 28, the United States will have been fighting in Iraq one day longer than American GIs did during WWII.
But this is possibly the only parallel that may be drawn between the two conflicts.
The defeat of the Axis powers in WWII brought about the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Imperial Japan, and with the exception of the odd group of Japanese soldiers stuck in some remote Pacific island outposts who continued to believe the war was still on, the act of surrender meant the end of hostilities.
But in Iraq, the defeat of Saddam Hussein and the disbandment of his army and security services, along with the dismemberment of the Iraqi Baath Party, served as the signal for the start of real hostilities to begin.
The defeat of the Axis in WWII set the ground for a new beginning and for the rebuilding of a devastated Europe. The defeat of Iraq set the ground for an open-ended conflict, and with each passing month, the chances of a negotiated scale-back of violence seem more and more remote. In Europe, the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and the execution of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo in Japan signaled the end of WWII. In Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, triggered the start of the real war, and saw the beginning of the insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition.
And this guerrilla war that began shortly after the fall of Baghdad is proving to be far deadlier for both U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians than the actual invasion of the country, which started with the blitzkrieg drive by U.S. force from neighboring Kuwait in the south, right up to the Iraqi capital, and beyond.
Since President George W. Bush declared major combat operations over -- albeit somewhat prematurely -- when he landed in full flight regalia and in great pomp and circumstance aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003, more U.S. military personnel have been killed in action in Iraq than during the actual invasion phase. From the beginning of hostilities in Iraq until Oct. 20, a total of 2,785 American service personnel have lost their lives; in Afghanistan 339 American troops died before Oct. 16.
The defeat of the Axis powers in WWII delineated a clear and unconditional surrender to the Allies. There were no questions regarding who won and who lost the war. This is far from being the case with the asymmetrical wars being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the lines remain blurred, where victories and defeats are hard to establish and where it appears more and more that a decisive military victory against the insurgents in Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan becomes less of a reality and more of a dream with every passing day.
