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 - WHAT exactly does this mean? Is he talking about dismantling all our Nukes? EVEN the ones on the submarines? Note to President Obama: WE DON’T USE ALMOST ALL OUR DEFENSE SYSTEMS, AND ALOMST ALL OF THOSE ARE COLD WAR SYSTEMS! WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS MEAN!? He frequently refers to how much better the Chinese are doing. I am sure they will LOVE to see us throw out all our Nukes. President Obama frequently referred to reducing the missile defense, star wars, program. Well, we don’t use those. Let’s scrap them before we get them deployed! What “Cold War’ defense systems do we not use? If there is a radar, or other, detection system watching for alerts, such as a ROGUE NUKE, then it is IN USE President Obama! In all my years in the military I never saw a system that wasn’t being USED! This statement to me is the scariest thing the President said last night. Knowing for sure that he has targeted the missile defense system in the past, I am confident that this is exactly what he is targeting for shut down. Let’s think for a moment about what else we AREN’T currently using that could fall into this category.

President BHO: “For seven years we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.”

 - WHO the HECK is hiding this?? Maybe the President hasn’t Googled “Military Budget” recently. Well, I did it for him. Here’s one result. Wikipedia U.S. Military Budge  - It’s Wikipedia!! Maybe the President should spend more time reading Wikipedia, there are many of his supporters there, if he wants to get better informed regarding the military budget.

• October: U.S. Congress authorizes President Bush to use military force against Iraq.
• November: U.N. weapons inspections inside Iraq.

2003

• March: U.N. weapons inspectors evacuate Iraq. U.S.-led coalition invades Iraq.
• April: Saddam Hussein led regime collapses. Saddam Hussein escapes toward his hometown.
• May: Coalition Provisional Authority established to rule in Iraq. Iraqi U.N. sanctions removed.
• December: Saddam Hussein captured near hometown of Tikrit.

2004

• March: Temporary interim Iraqi constitution signed.
• April: Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr starts internal rebellion against U.S.-led forces.
• June: Control turned over to new Iraqi government – elections planned.

2005

• January: Iraqi citizenry votes – elects Iraqi National Assembly.  
• April: INA chooses Jalal Talabani President – Ibrahim al-Jaafari Prime Minister of Iraq.
• October: Iraqi citizens vote to approve new Iraqi constitution. Saddam Hussein ‘crimes against humanity’ trial begins in Baghdad.
• December: Iraqi Parliamentary elections held.

2006

• May: Nouri al-Maliki voted Prime Minister of Iraq.
• June: Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi killed in Iraq by U.S. forces.
• December: Saddam Hussein found guilty by Iraqi tribunal and executed. The first annual passing of this event was largely ignored by Iraqi’s one year later.

2007

• January: President Bush announces U.S. troop surge of 20,000 in Iraq.
• May: President Bush vetoes Congressional legislation funding Iraq War with deadlines for withdrawal.
• September: U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, reports to Congress on progress of troop surge. U.S. Ally and Sunni leader Abdul Sattar Abu Risha killed in Iraq.

2008

• March: President Bush claims normalcy in Iraq.
• April: General David Petraeus delivers highly anticipated briefing to Congress. Weekly Standard: ‘General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” General David Petraeus made Commander U.S. CentCom. General Raymond Odierno will placed in charge of Iraq theatre
• September: U.S. forces turn over control of Anbar Province to Iraqi military. General Raymond Odierno becomes U.S. Commander in Iraq.
• November: Path to Iraqi sovereignty agreed upon. Iraq government and U.S. pass security agreement. Final phase of Iraqi sovereignty.  
• December: Air victories mount rapidly. Dozens of videos begin to leak to US press which show mounting victories from the sky from Unmanned Predator Vehicles which lead to a severe reduction in the number of military killed by IED’s and illegal combatants. These UAV’s should make a very sharp reduction in US losses in Afghanistan.

2009

• January: Iraqi military mission mostly complete. U.S. turns over control of more levels of airspace, Green Zone and many more territorial regions to Iraq. American troops mostly removed with control mostly turned over to Iraqi military and government by 2011.

2011

• With three years of post-Iraq-War peace an official proclamation of victory in Iraq is produced, voted on and passed. 

 Well, I think military victory can best be defined by those that are mostly undisputed victories for the USA. Germany and Japan are the best examples we have of clear military war victories and they represent the best case scenario for defining a military war victory. Although some will always debate victories by asking things like If we were victorious in Japan, then why are we now losing our car industry to the Japanese? The answer of course is that free and stable democracies will always compete with us on some level, and so that is the risk taken when we have to remove a military and security threat. The only answer to avoid future commercial completion, or commercial risk, is to never give the country back to the original owners, and I don’t even think the most left leaning war protesters would dare argue that we should never give the country back to the people of said country.  So we’ll stick with the key issue at hand. Did we achieve a military victory in Iraq?  It seems that when we apply the rules of post-war that define military success in both Japan and Germany, we most certainly have achieved a victory in Iraq and will likely in Afghanistan in short time. The final phase of victory, which we define as the country not slipping into a civil war immediately upon our departure will take more time, thus the victory is complete, but not proven sustainable for some greater period of time.

1. Dictators and war criminals removed from power and punished by the people of country.
2. Military in command and control of ground and airspace.
3. New constitution, new elected government, rights of individuals guaranteed. Freedom of religion and expression without retribution.
4. Military established in “new” country. New country establishes control of itself.
5. Foreign military begins to pull out and turn control over to new country.
6.  New government remains in control of country, or remains on non-threat to United States and world. Remains free of uncontrolled threats t the USA such as terrorist training camps. No major civil war for at least three to five years. January 1, 2009, will be the start date for this counter, so I assert that if by January 1, 2011, there has been no civil war in Iraq, and the country is productive and growing its own economy, then we can officially declare success in Iraq. Then Afghanistan to follow.

No need to fear Bush-haters! We might have actually won this war, but it will be long after Bush when some future President gains the courage of his convictions and proclaims a solid victory in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The following Project Victory post is a Timeline of Iraq War Events (Posting Tomorrow, January 3rd, 2009. Link Not Activated Yet!) that are pertinent to the Iraqi turnover back to Iraqi’s that can be used to define for yourself if we did indeed win this war. Of course the war on terror continues.

Project Victory continues to track our military success.