What would victory in Iraq look like?

In response to James Wagner's Sept. 8 letter to editor headlined "Do Democrats want U.S. to lose in Iraq?"

I ask what he considers winning in Iraq? Is the waste of 3,761 of our brave men and women's lives and 27,761 wounded so far a win? Or is $2 billion a week going to a country that doesn't appreciate us a win? Or Bush and Cheney and big-business profits on our tax dollars without any accountability for this war?

We were suckered into this war by an administration who fed us lies and now they are feeding us lies about what will happen if we leave Iraq. Seven years after our cowboy president stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center with his arm around the fireman said the people responsible for this will hear us and pay for this, bin Laden is still free and on the loose spreading terror in the world --still a big threat to America.

Bin Laden was never in Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with the planes that caused the destruction of 911 in 2001. I wish people that still support this war would wake up to the facts and not what is being fed to you. If our country's leaders are determined to keep this useless war going, then let the politicians keep their noses out of it and let the generals fight the war like a war should be fought. Fight it with everything we got and then get out.

If not, then pull the troops and bring them home and stop the senseless killing of our brave men and women, and keep the billions of dollars going to Iraq in this country to help our own people in need and fix our infrastructure and secure our borders.

If we did that, I would consider that a win for America.

Merrill Urbane Jr.

Lake Zurich