Betrayal is hard to forget.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani condemned the report by the Iraq Study Group released by the US government:

"We can smell the attitude of James Baker in 1991 when he liberated Kuwait but left Saddam in power."

Then, Bush Senior had encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, which they did. The rebelling Shias and Kurds took over 14 or so of 17 provinces. And then the good Saudi King called up Bush and expressed 'concerns' with having a Shia-Muslim dominated neighbor. So instead of supporting Shia and Kurdish rebels against Saddam's tanks and helicopters, Bush did nothing. And the rebels were massacred, hundreds of thousands of them. It would have been like stopping at the borders of Germany in 1945 instead of finishing the job.

Who knows; maybe Bush was right not to get involved. Maybe there was no exit strategy. Regardless, if nothing else we should at least guarentee the Kurds that we will see them through to the end; that they will either have a stable Iraq or an independent Kurdistan. And as I've said before, we haven't won but neither has anyone else. We need a change of strategy, as the mass occupation isn't working, but that doesn't mean we should leave the country altogether or give up on the whole thing.

Link to all of Talabani's statements.