Famed War Correspondent Joe Galloway Calls for U.S. Pullout After Iraq Elections

By: E&P Staff In his latest column for Knight Ridder newspapers, famed war correspondent Joseph L. Galloway, a Bronze Star winner, calls for the United States, following Iraqi elections on Jan. 30, to "declare victory and begin leaving."

He joins the rather small band of commentators or editorialists advocating withdrawal.

Last month, in a USA Today column, founder Al Neuharth called for the United States to leave Iraq "sooner rather than later."

Galloway, co-author of "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young," won a Bronze Star in Vietnam after saving the lives of several soldiers and has covered nearly every major conflict since, including the current one.

In his current column he writes that if we stay the course in Iraq "we're likely doomed to an even bloodier and more costly defeat in a country divided along ethnic and religious fault lines and headed toward civil war. ...

"The problem is that there is no way we can win -- defeat the insurgents and install a stable, democratic, friendly government -- and bad things are going to happen anyway. There is no way Americans are willing to pay the price even of stalemate, never mind an unattainable victory. ...

"Why can't we win? Because we charged in with false premises and bogus assumptions. Because for every insurgent we kill, two or three more join the cause. Because even our advertised victories -- like Fallujah, where we apparently had to destroy the city in order to save it, or Samarra or Ramadi -- only turned the entire Sunni population against the United States and its Iraqi allies. ...

"If we learned nothing else from the bitter history of Vietnam it should be that there are places and people who won't accept change and won't quit fighting until even the most powerful nation and army in the world wearies of the killing and dying. ...

"As we approach the second anniversary of our invasion of Iraq we need to be discussing and debating what we are gaining, if anything, from this war and what we are losing."