8 Year Anniversary Of Musings On Iraq

I got interested in Iraq completely by chance. On 9/11 I was watching TV when former CIA chief James Woolsey got interviewed on TV and said that the U.S. needed to attack Iraq even if it wasn’t involved in the assaults on New York City and Washington D.C. I thought that was an odd comment since everyone had already seemed to agree that Al Qaeda was responsible. As 2001 turned into 2002 there were more and more calls for the U.S. to invade Iraq and that got me interested in why people in Washington were pushing this idea. I was an early opponent of the war believing that Iraq was thoroughly contained by sanctions and two no fly zones. Looking at how Afghanistan went I was also worried that the U.S. lacked the knowledge, resources, and will to deal with post-war Iraq. I started reading about Iraq every day and posting on message boards. I later started writing essays about what I thought was going on. Finally in 2008 I decided to start a blog. This was a time when most American and Iraqi blogs were disappearing either because they believed the war was coming to an end after the Surge or were migrating to Facebook. Today I am one of the only Iraq blogs left. As the years have passed its gotten harder to keep up with all my research and writing while working as a teacher and having a family, but I’m still trying to write at least 4 articles a week. I’d like to thank all my readers, and especially all those that have shared their wisdom about Iraq with me either via conversations or interviews.