… a majority of Republicans still think invading Iraq was the right thing to do and don’t want to withdraw….

Constituting no majority of Republicans but speaking as a Republican only for myself, I still think that invading Iraq was the right thing to do. However, I also believe that the U.S. accomplished its original mission back in 2003. Refusing to be completed, the mission has crept into a new stance since 2003 and it is this new stance that has failed. As a Republican, I separate the mission as we in the public originally understood it in President Bush’s 70-plus percent approval days from the nonsense the mission has morphed into since that time.

The president should have pulled us out in 2004, or in 2005 at the latest. Failing this, Congress should have compelled withdrawal in 2005 or 2006 (though I fully admit the political difficulty of this for many Congressmen of both parties at the time). Hence, today I do want to withdraw. I wish that we could still loot Iraq of sufficient oil to pay for the original invasion, but it’s too late for that now.

We won the war a long time ago. The embers of our victory have waned cold. We failed to loot the oil as we ought, but there is still time for us belatedly to accept a cold victory and to depart.

Howard