Reply #40: try again, we are fighting a nation of veteran soldiers. [View All]

even scott ritter warned us about this, along with plenty of others, especially experts in modern mideast and iraq.

saddam had mandatory military service for the entire male population, they had a 9 year war with iran, they had a war with kuwait (from US implicit approval, sneaky bastards in our gov't) which quickly turned into a (very short) war with a world coalition led by the US. what you have there is a nation with easily about a decade of combat experience, an entire generation of iraqis who were not only trained in military skills, but often had real-life experience.

we are fighting a nation of veterans. we stepped into deep shit is what we did.

(basically i reiterate, poorly, what another poster has already said about iraqis being quite capable and trained fighters)