Does anyone really think a thousand poorly trained French troops would have made a difference in Iraq?
361551
Of course it would have made a differance, we could use them to drive ahead of real soldiers and detonate any road side bombs that may have been planted.
431972
may be it is simple,,,,the whole business of the Iraq invasion was wrong...or may be they feel they are indeed intelligent and learned as to make themselves heard and express thier true thoughts....and as it begins to appeat now taht this Iraq invasion was not a worthy thing to do for the US, given the implications in the long run...so yeah they were intelligent and smart people as their thoughts tell.
314116
i actually agree with honeycasey. it would have been a LOT easier to go for war in venezwuala than iraq and we would have had a lot more support from europe.
764467
I saw some things on the news about I think that now its not about fighting I think now we need to train our soldiers to train the Iraqi soldiers to do the job our soldiers are doing like raids check points. I heard this guy(god rest his soul) who was a marine and he talked about how no one seemed to understand the war but he did that he was fighting for these peoples freedom. I dont know I dont think we can solve the problem but I think we should in no way send more troops I think we should train the  Iraqi troops to do what our troops are doing and then leave. Because if we left right now all at once I feel like everything that we have accomplished will become a waste and speaking as a military fiance the soldiers who are fighting and the ones that have died all the hard work we dont need to go to waste.
331857
Quite a few, but figures are not released. There are about 25,000 mercenaries working for the Coalition in Iraq, mainly former special forces soldiers, people who failed the military entrance tests, and you friendly Apartheid-era white supremacist death squad folks. From what we have heard though is that they aren't used to the enemy being armed and shooting back and so have suffered quite high casualty rates, possibly higher than total Coalition government troop deaths.
516178
no, they would have raised there hands and surrendered.\nFour levels of French Terror alert.\n1. Run\n2. Hide (where they are now)\n3. Surrender\n4. Collaborate
1057085
You're joking right?\n\nWe all know who the biggest fool of the world atm. Who was foolish enough to occupy a country with 1/4 the number of troops that was needed and against 90% of the rest of the world's advice?
553524
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have lately been touting three sets of statistics to justify their claims of great progress in Iraq. First, they say, we've trained 100,000 Iraqi security forces. Second, 31 other countries are contributing troops as part of the vast international coalition. Third, Iraqi reconstruction is moving along on schedule, thanks to the $18.4 billion in U.S. economic aid.\n\nYet the U.S. State Department's most recent Iraq Weekly Status Report, dated Oct. 6, reveals that all three of those claims are either false or so misleading that they might as well be.\n\nFirst, it's true there are 100,000 Iraqi security forces, about three-quarters of whom are police, army troops or National Guardsmen. But that falls far short of the 272,000 forces that the report calculates are required. (For a breakdown of how many trained security forces exist and how many are needed, by category, click here.) \nSecond, about those 31 coalition members: All told, according to the report, they're contributing about 24,000 troops. The British alone are supplying about 8,000. So the remaining 30 countries have a total of 16,000 troops in Iraq—an average of just over 500 troops per country. The United States has about 130,000 troops over there—more than five times as many as all the other 31 countries combined. (For a full list of the countries involved—which include such powerhouses as Albania, Azerbaijan, and Tonga—click here.) This is not a coalition in the recognized sense of that word.\n\nCompare those figures with these: During the 1991 Gulf War (according to U.S. Central Command's official history of that conflict), 37 other nations took part, sending a total of 270,000 armed forces, flying 30,000 air sorties, and suffering one-third of combat fatalities. Among the nations sending at least one army division were Egypt and Syria. Now that's a coalition.*\n\nMore damning are the report's figures on Iraqi reconstruction. Yes, the U.S. Congress has appropriated $18.4 billion for this effort; but, according to the report, the authorities on the ground in Iraq have spent just $1.3 billion—about 7 percent of the money set aside.\n\nThe specifics of this disparity are still more depressing. For security and law enforcement, $3.2 billion was appropriated, but only $646 million has been spent. For electricity, $5.4 billion was appropriated, $330 million spent. For water resources and sanitation, $4.2 billion was appropriated, a pathetic $23 million spent. For oil infrastructure, $1.7 billion was appropriated, just $47 million spent. For justice, public safety and civil society, $1 billion was appropriated, $55 million spent. For health care, $786 million was appropriated, but $4 million spent. For transportation and communication, $500 million was appropriated, $12 million spent. And the list goes on.\n\nAlthough the State Department issued this report, you will not find it—or its weekly updates—on the State Department's Web site. Nor will you find it on the site of the Agency for International Development (though AID does have a similar report, with far vaguer and rosier figures). Instead, you'll find it on the Web site of the U.S. Commerce Department's Iraq Investment and Reconstruction Task Force—in short, on a site for businesses that need to know what's really happening over there. \n\nWhat's really happening—in numbers as clear as day—is that the training of security forces is proceeding way too slowly, the coalition is a misnomer, and reconstruction has barely got off the ground.\n\nCorrection, Oct. 8, 2004: The piece originally misstated the number of non-U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War coalition. It originally said that the non-U.S. coalition partners sent "a total of 800,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, as well as 300 combat support battalions, over 225 naval vessels, and 2,800 fixed-wing aircraft. Those aircraft flew 112,000 sorties and droppe
947898
France was doing undertable deals with Saddam and violating the sanctions, same the same with Germany and Russia.  Small wonder those 3 didn't want us to invade, they were making millions.
777292
In that it was unnecessary, and a poor deployment of our troops, yes, it was wrong.\n\nThe fact is, like any army, we have limited resources and they need to be used to best effect to protect our country and our citizens. The Iraq war did nothing to protect us. Saddam was contained, and was not working on any kind of banned weapons program. We should have kept him contained until the locals decided to overthrow  him - that would have happened eventually.\n\nIn the meantime, our forces could have hunted down and killed the terrorists that attacked us - that was and still is our real enemy. We should also have kept up our deployment in Afgahnistan - which is now in danger of falling back under the control of the Taliban. What a terrible waste of our young people - and all because none of our leaders have ever served in the active forces.
957409
That's an interesting point. They remind me of the South Vietnamese "army" who we went in originally to help train, but they never quite got it.
788037
there are several ways to look at this.firstly the weapons of mass destruction were never found but the iraqs were living under a dictator.sometimes you have to look at the wider angle and decide the real motives behind it was it oil.i dont know but what i do know is this tinderbox is well and truly kindled and people are getting killed trying to stabalise the situation.i feel sorry for all the soldiers and innocent people caught up and being killed  in a confused and volatile country .in my opinion it is a no win situatin for both sides .
948213
Coincidence.   The Iraqis are too incompetent to have anything turn out according to any pre-determined plan.
312439
yes they should ..but do you know how?? they are punishing them self's !! the pillions that they spend over war..the thousands of soldiers died their.. the hate that they gained all over the world !! they are doing pretty mush well in punishing them self's !!
709314
Well since guns were getting better technologically-wise, cavalry didn't help much unless they were sent to destroy artillery.\n\nBut personally, that sounds like suicide to me.\n\nthanks\nShadowhawk--
760542
no. lack of competent leadership has been hurting us in Iraq.
599572
the french foregin legion would be better