Iraq was the battlefield of choice for the GWOT -- Iraq is in the heart of the ME -- it has/had an educated, secular core citizenship base to build on only those who will not acknowledge (most for bushbashing purposes IMO) that the GWOT is a war between free democratic societies and Islamofacism and therefore refuse to see that a free and democratic Iraq is the keystone to building free and democratic governments in the barbaric world of Islam Iraq will be seen as essential to winning the GWOT and winning with less than 5,000 fatal casualties as a major successful military strategy JMHO