End The Iraqi War

Title: End the Iraqi war

Specific Purpose: to persuade my audience that the war in Iraq is unnecessary

Introduction

3,996, that is how many American soldiers have died since march 2003. 514 billion, that is how much the country has spent on this war, which translates to $121,000 per person in the US.

The “war on terrorism” has unacceptable costs for the United States both emotionally and financially. In Iraq the United States faces the ugly prospect that its military adventure is deteriorating into a major failure. Right now I am going to explain to you the importance in ending this war.

Body

I. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the world seemed united in condemning as an assault on civilization. (Hertzberg)

A. With frustrating haste, the United States squandered world support by going to war against Iraq on March 20, 2003

1. Within days, American forces occupied that country, neutralizing all formal opposition.

B. Unfortunately, defeating the Iraqi army was only the beginning of the American role in Iraq, and for its continuation, the United States has proven wholly unprepared

1. Entering Iraq with unreasonable expectations that we would be welcomed as liberators, America brought a force that, for all its hardware, was less than one-third the number of military and police that Saddam Hussein had used to control his country.

2. Virtually no planning had been done about dealing with post-war Iraq

3. And critically, the United States had almost no interpreters among its invading troops. (Fallows)

C. Even the military strategy was flawed

1. The Pentagon ordered the Iraq army disbanded, without consulting its own officers in Iraq. This crated a huge block of unemployed, disaffected Iraqis.

2. followed a delay of six months in any effort to rebuild Iraq, while the American military carried out its hunt for the never-to-be-found weapons of mass destruction while making no effort to train a new Iraq army or police, even as reports began to filter in of a situation deteriorating badly.(Fallows)

II. By October 2003, as it was clear that America was an occupying power, America finally undertook the job of training an Iraqi army and police,

A. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced with delight that in just six months, the Americans had brought 100,000 Iraqis into the country’s new army, so that soon the Iraqi army would outnumber the American forces in Iraq.

B. In many Iraqi battalions, desertion remains rampant. On their part, the Iraqis complain that they were being given second-rate equipment by their American mentors, hardly a sign of trust.(Fallows)

1. Given its limited numbers, the American military cannot provide the first prerequisite of stable nation building: they cannot provide civilians with security and stability.

C. Now, with attacks on Iraqi police commonplace, the American presence in Iraq has become the focal point of the insurgency and all other opposition.

D. The Iraqis increasingly resent military occupation by American forces and view the Americans as the main fuel for the insurgency.

III. By trying to stay in Iraq, we only make matters worse. Having never planned an exit strategy, America has none, and even if we did, the insurgency may leave us with no means of honorable exit.(Cockburn)

A. Our strategy is little more than a blind effort to kill those we label terrorists.

B. Our actions so antagonize Iraqis that we create terrorists faster than we kill them. Arguably, we could not make the Iraqi civil war worse if we simply left.

1. Our efforts to make a new nation in Iraq have not succeeded. We are worsening the very problems that we went to Iraq to solve.

2. Not surprisingly, Iraqis are impatient with the American occupation and reconstruction effort that have touted the show of democracy but not