Why we are losing Iraq

Retired Army General John Batiste speaks out on the fatal mismanagement of the war that has cost us Iraq.

“There was never enough. There was never a reserve,” he said. “Again and again, we had to move troops by as many as 200 miles out of our area of operations to support another sector. We would pull troops out of contact with the enemy and move them into contact with the enemy somewhere else. The minute we’d leave, the insurgents would pick up on that, and kill everybody who had been friendly.”

You can't truly win hearts and minds when they know you aren't going to be there long enough to truly pacify the country. This raises the question whether this war was ever truly winnable from day 1. But even if it was it is clear that the actual way it was handled has turn it into a defeat.