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Iraqis are conflicted as U.S. combat mission ends
Loading ...Muwafak Ali’s downtown Baghdad music store is still pockmarked by the American rocket that whizzed through the door on one of the first days of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He has since reopened, but business is bad. So are many of his memories concerning the seven-plus years of American combat operations that officially came to an end Tuesday.
“It would have been better if they didn’t come, but now that they’re here, they should stay,” said Ali, 44, a wedding musician who hated Saddam Hussein, yet fondly remembers the days when the dictator was in control, the days before the chaos set in.
It’s a view shared by many Iraqis as the American presence winds down to 50,000 troops serving in an advisory role.
Seven and a half years after then- President George W. Bush attacked Iraq, Baghdad is a battered and weary city whose streets still bear the scars of a still inconclusive war, and whose residents are still groping to comprehend the magnitude of the changes that turned their lives upside down.
For more than 20 years they endured a dictatorship whose rules most didn’t like, but easily understood. Then came the invasion, which many at first welcomed, followed by days of looting, years of insurgency, four governments and a sectarian war, transforming their country in ways that may not be fully resolved for many years, after the dust has settled on the huge uncertainties that still linger. Will Iraqi politicians reach agreement on a new government? Will the insurgency succeed in its efforts to make a comeback? Can the nation’s security forces stand alone?
Continue Reading at LA Times.
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