What difference does the surge make? Our terrific military has made some progress, but the real problem is the first part of this war was a disaster. Any good general—and Petraeus is a good one—could start progress, after five years of none!

So how many years of surges and withdrawals will it take when no political solution is in sight? It will not help to create peace in Iraq, because we still have the leaders, the Bush Administration and the Republican Party in our country, who are wrong and have been wrong from the beginning of this invasion. Then we have the leaders of Iraq who will not take control of their own country as long as we are doing their fighting and pouring in the money.

The surge is a stalling effort by the Bush Administration and his Republican Party to pass on their problem to the next administration, because they do not have a clue how to clean up the mess they created.

Bush recently stated in "horror" that the American people need to understand that the terrorists kill innocent men, women and children while he was completely oblivious to the fact that he invaded a country that was no threat to us, and he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. He fits his own description of a terrorist! He is the one who deceived our proud and brave military and the American citizens at home.

Maureen Conboy
Rice Lake, WI