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In addition the recent Iraq War was more than one war. The Iraqi Army was defeated fairly easily within a few weeks. The Fedayin Saddam were only the driving force of the insurgency for a short time. IE the remove Saddam first part of the war was over and done long before Saddam was ever captured. While his forces may have launched attacks here and there vast majority of the war after that was al Qaeda in Iraq fighting the US and various Iraqi factions fighting the US or alternately just trying to destabilize the country in general.
In a way because in the gulf war there was no support for going further than getting Saddam to agree to inspections and the he kicked them out. Saddam said in interviews that he wanted to make thought he had wndS because he feared Iran attacking Iraq which makes sense.
I`d say the 2003 misadventure was more about entertaining the plain folks at home. Most Americans were game for killing some Muslims...any Muslims at that.
And this is what I warned about...post #7 onwards is OFF TOPIC. Newmeat has an excuse since he may not understand the concept of "thread hijacking", but the rest of you guys should know better. Take it to the P&C forum or start a new thread, because this thread will attract the nuts and start going bad soon.
With reference to the OP's title question, I doubt if there was a calendar week between 1991 and 2011 in which there was not a strategic bombing of Iraqi targets by American and/or allied aircraft or artillery, in support of the no-fly order during times when there no ground combat. In that sense, the belligerence through that period was pretty much continuous, but with fluid, changeable and at times overlapping tactical objectives.
The real question would be whether it ever qualified as being a war, in the sense that it was, for the most part, simply a continuous one-sided attack against very little meaningful resistance.
Whatever popular opinion might be, taking out Saddam was not a mistake (IMO) - and the 2nd Gulf War was successful in that regard.
The big mistake was the ensuing poorly planned occupation which caused unnecessary suffering and expense.
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