[WI wide body]

The recent decline of violence in Iraq and the accompanying drop in American casualties is great news and both welcome and long over due.

The sad part is that we rejoice when "only" 20 or 30 of our troops are killed and hundreds more maimed. How our "policy" came to this point is what should be examined.

We invaded Iraq for non-existent WMD's and to get rid of Saddam. Even if well intentioned, both were questionable. A nation that might possess WMD's is not a viable reason for my nation to invade and neither is getting rid of whomever might be in power unless that nation poses a clear and positive threat to my nation.

Next we should pay attention to what developed in Iraq. Saddam was the ultimate bad guy (unlike when he was our buddy) along with his Baathist Party and the Sunni who comprised 99% of the Baathist Party. So after deposing Saddam we immediately banned virtually all Sunni from the new Shiite ruling group we installed. As we all now know, for a variety of reasons chaos was the result of that policy.

Now, Gen. Petraeus and other commanders credit the recent good news to mostly one thing: A transformation of our policy that has resulted in getting the Sunni's intimately involved and in power in the most volatile areas.

So what we are effectlvely doing is calming Iraq by using the very same people that Saddam used to control Iraq during his evil and despotic regime!

Yes, we truly do have idiots in Washington...but none of them are among the 28,000+ that have been maimed during this exercise in lunacy.