Quote Originally Posted by Edwina's Secretary View Post
Getting rid of the insurgents! Oh so THAT'S why we were there...(It has always seemed as bit confusing. WMD...regime change...bogey man...insurgents)

Even scorched earth and the elimination of every person living in that country would not put an end to "insurgents." Sadly.
The initial reason we were there had nothing to do with insurgents, unless you count the Bath party as insurgents. After all, when you invade, you ARE the insurgents.

However, the resulting 3 hour tour of Iraq came under the heading of we broke it, we fix it.

The reason we've still had troops in the country since the invasion was an attempt to stabilize an inherently unstable political construct. Since that we've seen multiple rewrites of the SASO (stability and support operations) manual, changing acronyms (which unless you've been part of a staff you have no idea what a semi-humorous PITA that is) changing TTPs, (tactics, techniques and procedures), ad nauseum.