“For Dempsey, the war’s end is more of a “milestone” than a “culmination,” he said, listing a long to-do list for Iraq’s security. He knows the politics behind the language of the Iraq War as well as anyone, refusing to be lured into declaring it a success or failure. “I try to avoid false dichotomies,” he said. But he says he’s proud the U.S. has given Iraqis “an enormous opportunity” to build something, and in doing so the chairman lays bare that Iraq has not yet achieved the potential the U.S. had sought. I’m concerned but I’m also proud,” Dempsey said.
Once an inner ring of Iraq’s wartime inferno, Falluja is only too eager to say goodbye to nearly nine shattering years of raids, bombings and house-to-house urban combat. At least 200 American troops were killed in this city. Untold thousands of Iraqis died, civilians and insurgents who are mourned equally as martyrs.Today, Falluja is a city desperately seeking normal.
At Iraq War’s End, Wounds Are Still Fresh For Falluja (Jack Healy, New York Times)