Petraeus told CNN in March 2008: "We didn't advertise, you know, 'Join the police force, and we'll give you money.' These guys lined up by the hundreds because they were sick and tired of what al Qaeda was doing to their communities, and they knew that they had to stand up and fight." So what happens when the money dries up? Critics, "We have to understand that this expedient policy of paying your enemy is very dangerous. It's fragile, and eventually, hatred of the foreign occupier overwhelms greed," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/
In the years that followed, AQ made amends with their Sunni brothers. Now they are working in common cause against the Shiaa, beginning in the very place where the 'awakening' began: Faludjah. Their movement is spreading. Nothing gains followers like success, and we can now expect that with the profound successes of the past couple months, the so-called ISIS is likely to grow much stronger. But this is the key point:
Had the United States not intervened in Iraq in 2003, none of this would even be happening. Second, after intervening if we'd have kept the Iraqi Army intact and quickly redeployed, again, none of this would have happened. But at every turn, our four star generals and their political sponsors made the wrong strategic decision: wrong for going in in 2003, wrong for staying in 2004, then compounded the first two bad decisions by paying, training, arming, and then supplying some of the very groups who are rising to power now in Iraq.
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