Larsen: Five years and counting

Nearly 4,000 deaths and billions of dollars spent

Wednesday marks the beginning of the sixth year of a war that should not have been fought, has claimed nearly 4,000 members of the U.S. military who should not have been lost and will eventually cost between $2 trillion and $3 trillion that should not have been wasted.

By now, most people accept that the intelligence used to make the case for the war had been seriously flawed either because of inept intelligence assessments or heavy political influence to fix facts to preconceived notions or taken from less-than-reliable sources (most notably, Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraq National Congress) or a combination of all three.

Most people also would now agree that the Bush administration had no coherent plan for a postwar occupation of Iraq and little idea of how to blunt the insurgency other than for President Bush to say, &quot;If the commanders in Iraq tell me they want more troops, I will provide them.&quot;

Of course, he had already shown by example what happens when a commander does ask. Before the war, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that a war against Iraq could require as many as 300,000 to 400,000 troops. That didn't fit the administration's minimalists' plans. Administration officials, civilians all, criticized Shinseki, in effect, telling the general he had no idea what it would take to fight a war and he was shunted aside.

And, most people know of the mistakes made along the way that have lengthened the war, alienated allies and sullied America's image.

All these and more are needed lessons to remember as the war enters its sixth year. People won't, though. They didn't remember a key lesson of the Vietnam War: you can't fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics, or a key lesson of the Persian Gulf War: overwhelming force does work.

But hope does finally exist after five years of war, however slim it might be. Progress has been made during these past few months. The so-called &quot;surge,&quot; more properly an escalation, did have an effect on violence committed by insurgents &#8212; attacks have fallen by 60 percent from a year ago, the U.S. military in Baghdad told The Associated Press.

But the surge alone does not deserve all the credit. Some belongs to the Sunnis who gave up being insurgents in a revolt against what has been labeled &quot;al-Qaida in Iraq,&quot; and some credit must go to the cease-fire called by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

When foes stop attacking you, for whatever reason, violence will drop, just as violence will ebb when more troops are deployed in any given area. And, a drop in violence does allow some progress and normalcy &#8212; people will worship, will shop, will celebrate, will rebuild &#8212; until another suicide-bombing occurs, as one did Monday near a mosque in Karbala, a hundred miles south of Baghdad, killing 39 and wounding 54. Two other bomb attacks in Baghdad killed four and wounded 12.

Progress of any kind should be a starting point for ending the war and beginning to bring war-weary troops home, but, on the eve of this Iraq war anniversary, Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona each took a quick trip to Baghdad to tout recent security gains and to reiterate a long-term military commitment to Iraq.

So, as the war enters its sixth year, this nation faces continued military engagement on the ground with mounting American deaths and no end yet in sight. The 30,000 troops sent over for the surge, originally thought to be back by summer, might not be brought home until after the president leaves office.

Iraq faces continued, though lessened, attacks from suicide bombers or small groups of insurgents. Its government has made some progress toward self-sufficiency but not enough, yet, to stand on its own.

The message, then, on this fifth anniversary of the war seems to be &#8212; stay the course. Or, more simply, same time next year.

&#8212; Richard Larsen is a deputy opinion page editor at The Star. His e-mail address is