Vito Fossella

Vito Fossella is a New York Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The following viewpoint was written after he visited Iraq a few weeks after Saddam Hussein was deposed in the 2003 war. Fossella argues that complaints that the United States was failing to “win the peace” in Iraq after its military triumph are unfounded and that everyday life was already improving for millions of Iraqis because of the presence of American soldiers and workers. He blames much of the hardship that Iraq’s people are enduring not on the war or on American occupation, but on Hussein’s regime, which he contends has neglected or destroyed much of Iraq’s society and infrastructure. He asserts that the United States is committed...