Iraq: A failure by any measurement

Published September 8, 2010

On the evening of Aug. 31, just hours short of his self-imposed deadline, President Barack Obama took to the airwaves to announce that he had kept his 2008 election promise: American combat operations in Iraq have come to an end.

However, even the most ardent of Obama's partisan Democrat supporters could not muster much of a cheer at hearing the news.

Given that about 50,000 US troops—including...