>Just as we did not put an American in charge of rebuilding Afghanistan (my daughter's father is a presidential guard there now and I can asure you he is NOT American nor an American puppet) we should not in Iraq either. It gives the impression (hopefully not correct) of American dominance over a country when that is not the political goal. It gives Arab nations a justified complaint and makes us appear to be instead of a liberator a dominator and could even provoke more wars on behalf of Arab nations to attempt to liberate Iraq from us (the new dominator). While I agree with many aspects of handling Iraq militarily, I do not agree with ANY American civilian being in charge either than in a role of providing guidance and assistance in developing a democracy if that is the people's wish. If an outsider needs to be in a leadership role for a period of time until elections and political parties and support can be rallied by the people, then it needs to be a representative of another
>country from the UN and not the major backer of military intervention in Iraq. We will be responsible for furnishing the funds and support for rebuilding a country (as the major pusher and actor in military intervention), but that is not the same as
>taking political control during the rebuilding efforts. That is not required to be an American and it should not be.

I think the keywords here are "interim" and "civilian". We have no interest in staying there. One of my favorite arguments about this being a "War for Oil", is when you ask people, if we really wanted the oil, why didn't we just take over Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, when we were there? We didn't. We still have troops there, but at both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait's request.

Our goal is to get rid of Saddam, help a government get setup, then get out.