Originally posted by Arlo
Actually .... the war pretty much started when Saddam invaded Kuwait. There was a long cease fire during which time Saddam tried to play some mind games and fugged himself.
Your saying that America has essentially been on it's own all along must sit well British troops that've been there.
But ... ummm ... you don't see it that way, do you? 
The one has nothing to with the other - Britain's armed services are hugely respected, even loved by the British public - they are also covering a tiny area of Iraq - ie Basra and it's surrounds - have you seen any British forces involved in the fighting around the capital - nope you haven't and you won't either.
The fighting of this month is being done by the US army, Hungary simply pulled it's troops out when they they were confronted as did Poland.
Since the insurgents are targeting the Achilles heel of the coalition - ie their supply lines and civilian contractors it means that even more troops are going to be need to make those lines of communication secure.
Bush has promised the theatre commander 3 brigades, 3 full divisions wouldn't be enough - but that's just my opinion.
All you have to do is look at the casualty lists to see who is doing the fighting.
Btw your argument that the Iraq war is simply part of the Gulf War is erroneous - Gulf war had international support in terms of troops and perhaps more importantly money and most importantly UN support.
The Iraq war has no UN support, US is paying all the bills to the tune of $1 billion a week and from what I can see is currently taking all the casualties - I'll dig out the casualty lists if you like am sure they're posted somewhere on the net.
However it's easy to point out mistakes -I have no idea how to fix the problem - but hey I'm in good company, neither do Bush, Rice, Cheney or Rumsfeldt.
