Military Protocol
“What are we getting into here?” asked a sergeant with the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division who is stationed near Baqubah, a city 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. “The war is supposed to be over, but every day we hear of another soldier getting killed. Is it worth it? Saddam isn’t in power anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we still here?”
Two top U.S. defense officials signaled Congress on Wednesday that U.S. forces might remain in Iraq for as long as a decade … [Wolfowitz] did not dispute an estimate by Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., that the military would need an annual budget of $54 billion ? $1.5 billion a month for Afghanistan, $3 billion a month for Iraq.