A Vet's View

Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq War veteran and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, responds to assertions made by many political leaders that somehow the men and women serving in Iraq want an escalation of the war rather than to be finished with it:

“Everybody I talked to inside Iraq, and most of the people coming home, who have come home in recent months, don‘t support the surge because they don‘t think it will work. An increase in troop numbers, especially this small level, is not going to be the silver bullet solution to all our problems in Iraq.

And the administration hasn‘t listened to any of the generals throughout this war, so what makes anyone think that now they are going to start going down to the sergeants and lieutenants, who are at the tip of the spear and kicking in doors every day? They are not talking to the troops on the ground, because they don‘t support this…”