Eight years on, the Iraq war holds an important lesson for us

The war in Iraq, now eight years old, is different from previous conflicts.

In some ways it is easier to fight a traditional war, in which our government uses the military to carry out the will of our elected leaders against another government and its military. In that type of war, we shoot down the enemy's aircraft, sink its ships and destroy its tanks -- until its government no longer has an effective means to conduct armed conflict.

By that measure, we won the Gulf War of 20 years ago. And we won the current war in Iraq when President George W. Bush declared, "Mission accomplished."

The problem is that we didn't have a good exit strategy, and are continuing a policing action in Iraq rather than a conventional war. We defeated Iraq's military, but didn't know when or how to come home. These decisions are made, of course, by our elected leaders and not by our generals.

As a retired general, I am able to express whatever thoughts I have, while an active general is certainly not given that opportunity. I speak only for myself and am not, in any way, representing the Air Force or the Department of Defense.

In the first Gulf War, the objective was to drive the enemy from Kuwait; destroy most of its planes, tanks and trucks, and weaken its army so it would have difficulty waging war and would perhaps be vulnerable to a citizen uprising. Gen. Colin Powell had an exit strategy and persuaded our elected leaders to use it. When the mission was accomplished, we left.

In the two wars we are currently fighting, there is no victory or end in sight. There are no longer any planes, tanks or armies opposing us. There is no government that can officially surrender. Nobody knows when or whether we have won.

We can defeat any other nation's military, but that is not the same as conducting a policing action without a clear objective. These do seem to be endless wars. We should have learned to have an exit strategy before we start, and to know when to leave.

We have learned that our National Guard and Reserve forces are no longer "weekend warriors" and are an absolutely essential part of our national defense. They are in the front lines, performing exactly the same duties as our active duty members.

In Minnesota we have no active duty bases, but we do have nearly 19,000 members of the Guard and Reserve. These soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are our neighbors. It is the local schoolteacher, mail carrier, police officer or nurse who is carrying the burden of this fight.

When these people are deployed to combat, it can be for a year at a time, and often several times. They risk their lives, damage their civilian careers, miss important family events -- and some of them come home with serious injuries and missing limbs. About the only people making sacrifices to fight this war are our people in uniform, their families and their civilian employers. For the past eight years, 1 percent have been fighting while 99 percent of us have been shopping.

Our elected officials must learn that there is a limit to how much sacrifice our young men and women in uniform - all of them volunteers -- and their families are willing to accept. If we are to continue fighting with no end in sight, our nation and our political leaders must be willing to pay the price, an expensive price, to recruit additional people and to replace weapons systems that are wearing out from excessive use.

We can no longer continue to deploy, time after time, the same people, or they will make the difficult decision to leave the military. They are the best educated and trained in history. If we overburden and drive them out, they will be expensive and nearly impossible to replace.

War is costly, in terms of both people and money. If we continue down this path of no end, there will be a massive price to pay.

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Dennis W. Schulstad, Edina, is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force, and state chair emeritus of Employer Support of the Guard & Reserve. He is also a former member of the Minneapolis City Council.

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