Iraq Policy

The US-governments answer to problems in Iraq was that the troop number should be increased, President Bush stated that the US-forces would remain in Iraq until the 'job' was done. Iran has pushed the US towards the leaving or at least reducing their military presence in Iraq arguing that peace would not be achievable as long as US troops would remain in Iraq. Further the Iranian leadership stated that it would be willing to aid Iraq, once the US-troops had left, because before that it would be a wasted effort. Since the US-forces were an outside force, that had invaded the daily lives of the Iraqi population. One also has to consider the territory in which Iraq lies changed hands very often and this created an area which had no cultural roots. In the 30's the western powers drew the map for the middle east and did not let the regional population create their own countries. This might have created some of the conflicts in the middle east artificially. Rumsfeld the 'almost' ex-secretary of defense stated that it was apparent that the current Iraq policy was not working, that it might be better for the peace in Iraq to reduce the number of US-soldiers in Iraq and focus more on training the Iraqi police and military force. So that those could eventually deal with the challenges they face. Rumsfeld the person that is facing a legal challenge concerning war crimes and that was often criticized for his 'gun-ho' behavior is now also the first member or 'almost' ex-member of the US government to state this. It is an odd development, it could reflect his lack of risking a political carrier since his has already suffered greatly, maybe that he his trying to get around the legal challenge, but independently of those possibilities he might simply be saying his mind. This is a very new course for Rumsfeld and a challenge to the current administration.

Here are two related articles
Rumsfeld admitted Iraq failings (Al Jazeera)
Rumsfeld urged Iraq tactics shift (BBC)