Did America win or lose the war in Iraq?

Fuck it and North Korea too.

Uh... remind me why we ended up in Iraq again?

warcrimes. Boomers aren't important enough to be told the important reasons.

Muh WMDs they didn't have

Won the war, wasn't even a problem. Beat the shit out of them.
Lost the occupation, that was a fucking mess.

Turns out politics doesn't always fit into a neat yes/no question.

But... hang on, I thought that Sodamn Insane was harbouring them Al Kaeda?

that was Afghanistan

Iraq was probably the most anti-islamist regime at that time, purely because Saddam didn't like competition

A military disaster only rivaled by our humiliation in Vietnam.

Given that none of the problems with the US Military that existed at the start of the War on Terror have been fixed (and in most cases have gotten substantially worse), it's safe to say Iraq is going to be the precursor for a much larger disaster à la what the Russo-Japanese War was for Imperial Russia.

Won.

>Won the war, wasn't even a problem. Beat the shit out of them.
>Lost the occupation, that was a fucking mess.

They're one in the same you idiot. Also the invasion was executed terribly. A far cry from the brilliant masterstroke of the Gulf War or even the invasion of Panama (probably our finest hour desu).

>People thinking OP is talking about the 2nd and not 1st Gulf War
wtf is wrong with you people?

The 1st Gulf War dosen't even matter to anyone, unless you're an Israeli upset about SCUD strikes

1st Gulf War took place in Kuwait.

"war in Iraq" in American lexicon almost always refers to the 2003 war.

We simply call the 1991 war the "Gulf War" or "Desert Storm"

The most substantial fighting like 73 Easting and Battle of Phase Line Bullet actually took place in Iraq proper. Iraqi forces largely abandoned Kuwait without putting up a substantial fight.

>War is the same as occupation
Fuck man I forgot that WWII didn't end until the US stopped occupying Japan and Western Germany

Technically it didn't

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany

so WW2 never ended?

Unless Saddam is still in charge of Iraq, I'd say he lost. So his opponents won. The coalition opposing him consusted of moire countries than the US, but the US was dominant -- I'd have to say that was a win for the US.

Whether we won, will win, lost or will lose the peace is a different debate.

Real answer: Because Bush's national security team thought that Saddam was still a threat to gulf oil and needed to be removed from power before he could break out of the UN sanctions regime entirely and remilitarize the country.

Well, in 2013 iraq was basically pacified so both the war and the occupation were eventual wins, but wins in such a slow costly and humiliating way as to totally override any sense of victory

Furthermore in political terms it was an unmitigated disaster, iraq, a country almost devoid of islamism, was turned into the jihadist capital of the world for almost a decade and also its government was basically haded to iran on a plate, furthermore it completely destabilized the region and produced literally zero gain materially, politically or morally for the americans

well, it was a strategic loss but a crushing victory by ground-taken/forces-killed standards.

I think you can make a much stronger case that the 2014 ISIS offensive wasn't Americas fault than you can make that the 1975 Ho Chi Minh offensive wasn't a massive failed.

We actually pacified the country and handed it over, and then the retard running the other country crashed it with no survivors.

Is the Iraq War the same as the ensuing insurgency?

The actual invasion was brilliantly executed.

It's everything after that that was a miserable failure.

>Furthermore in political terms it was an unmitigated disaster, iraq, a country almost devoid of islamism, was turned into the jihadist capital of the world for almost a decade and also its government was basically haded to iran on a plate, furthermore it completely destabilized the region and produced literally zero gain materially, politically or morally for the americans

This

>The actual invasion was brilliantly executed.

No it wasn't actually. The invasion force was a fraction of the size General Shinseki had recommended and was planned and executed in such an unnecessary haste that most of the combat troops were wearing woodland MOPP equipment going in. Not to mention we pretty much let the Iraqi Army melt back into the general populace, taking their weapons with them.