The sight of the last convoy of US troops crossing the Iraqi border into Kuwait and the safety of the US army camp's McDonalds there was greeted with applause by nearly all Americans at home and a fair proportion of Iraqis in what they see as their now liberated home. No public doubts in America though there are likely to be in the Pentagon and other thinking parts of the political machine but a few more in Iraq, particularly amongst the now potentially disadvantaged minority Sunnis.
Nobody has yet dared to attempt a full audit of the war, what Iraq was like before the invasion, what it is like now and what went on and at what cost in lives and money in between. America needs a favourable verdict for domestic consumption especially amongst the relatives of the 4,500 dead military and the much larger number of maimed and irreparably wounded ones. Getting that verdict is going to be extremely difficult especially when the much larger numbers of Iraqis in both catageories is added to the account. Then there is the ruined infrastructure of what was a viable, functioning state , the wrecked hospitals and schools, the lost years of education ..and... and... The bill mounts with each thought and scan of the mental radar. Could it all really have been worth it to topple one man and his cronies when surely cheaper and more clinical remedies were at hand thanks to the state of modern very high tech electronics, drones, smart bombs and the like? Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were dreadful people and organisations but they posed little or no external threat. Iraq was a secular state, a buffer against Iran's ever present Gulf intentions and had a largely pro western history . Anti Israeli sabre rattling was largely orchestrated and cosmetic and it was doubtful if the country would go to war over it despite macho talk about that bogeyman the weapons of mass destruction. Saddam certainly had no truck with the Al Quaeda franchise, nothing at all to do with 9/11 and made sure that any signs of extremist trouble from out of line clerics were swiftly dealt with.
Now it's all over the academics and historians will come out of hiding and start to really examine the nuts and bolts of it all, hold the entrails up to the light and , along with the accountants and statisticians have a field day. The military and social analysts will be in there too. The origins, objectives, strategy, organisation and conduct of the war and its hideously expensive aftermath will receive the full glare of objectivecase studies at universities, military academies and political interest groups all over the world. Thumbs up or down? The betting has to be largely the latter as the bill in all respects just looks too big for the objective,- or stretching a point,-objectives.
Meanwhile what do the American troops and politicians take home with them and what do they leave behind as their personal legacies? Perhaps the fact that almost to a man or woman , after 9 years they still call the country I-rak says much of it. "We went there to make them do it our way. They can call themselves what they like but to us it's I-rak. They can like it or lump it." They didn't get much new cultural awareness or understanding of the realities and shape of the world for all that expenditure and nor did they successfully sell "The American way" to their hosts. In you go auditors of war. Let's see what's in the accounts and what it all adds up to. A mammoth headache could be coming down the track.
