Current Events > Question about the Iraq War.

(+) Yeah! (+)

So, major combat operations were March 2003 - May 2003, right? But when did the fighting "really" stop, and give way to peace-keeping operations? Was it in 2003, or later? If it was in 2003, what month was it?
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Sunhawk posted...

But when did the fighting "really" stop

TBD
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I knew the first answer would be a glib and sarcastic one. Why doe CEers feel the need to make stupid political points? Why can't they just answer a question?
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Honestly, it depends how you define "really." The US quickly handled the Iraqi army, but the insurgency continued. We had to send in the troop surge in 2007, and didn't pull out combat troops until 2011. They've since returned.
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Thank you, Antifar. That wasn't so hard, now was it?

But I think (although I'm not sure), that the fighting had died down a lot by, say, the end of 2003. After that, peacekeeping probably wasn't as hard.

Also, I think the troop surge was 2006, not 2007.

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The war transitioned for the most part after that to being an occupation and peacekeeping mission. The insurgents couldn't take us head on so they relied on IEDs, suicide bombers, and ambushes for the many following years.

Also there were some large scale resistances in cities like Fallujah and Ramadi in 2004 - 2005 that had intense combat.

I've been listening to the book Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill which is mainly about the role the company Blackwater played in Iraq, but one thing the book really makes clear is that Paul Bremer, the guy who was in charge of the Iraq rebuilding after that mission accomplished speech, REALLY fucked everything up by refusing to work with local leaders and religious figures and former Iraqi military and stuff, which ended up turning a lot of people against us in the months after the fall of Saddam.
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Sunhawk posted...

But I think (although I'm not sure), that the fighting had died down a lot by, say, the end of 2003. After that, peacekeeping probably wasn't as hard.

Fallujah was the biggest battle and that wasn't until late 2004. There were more insurgent attacks in 2005 than the year before.
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The fighting had stopped in 2003, then the Fire Nation attacked.
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