Dozens of people including civilians were killed on Friday in fighting between Sunni Islamist insurgents and Iraqi government troops in the northern city of Mosul, a day after a curfew was imposed there.
The fighting erupted in Mosul a day after government forces used helicopters to bomb militants and retake control of the city of Samarra further to the south.
Iraq could still use our help to fight the terrorists. Iraq still lacks an effective air force to provide precision firepower, and lacks the logistics expertise and intelligence analysis abilities to really go after the enemy.
We could provide these capabilities without putting our combat troops on the frontlines (although private security contractors to help direct precision firepower would help).
We'd do that if we were serious about waging the war on terror rather than planning to figuratively string up the "mission accomplished" banner by the end of 2016 so President Obama in his farewell address can declare--in that short, quiet interlude--that he "responsibly ended" our wars.
Heck, we might have been so successful in the Iraq War that Iraq will still be fighting the war on Islamist terror long after we've declared "war over" and closed Guantanamo Bay.
