英语论文网

She says by President Bush's second term, few Iraqis wanted to cooperate with the Americans to make the country more secure. But President Bush said American troops could not leave until Iraqi forces replaced them.

(MUSIC)

In two thousand six, an Iraqi court sentenced the country's former leader to death. Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity. But nothing else seemed to change -- violence and insurgent attacks continued.

Iraq seemed to be on the edge of being torn apart by civil war.

AP
These soldiers from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were among the troops deployed to Iraq as part of 'the surge'

Early the next year, President Bush announced that he was sending more troops to Iraq. He thought it would help stop the violence.

GEORGE W. BUSH: "These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission – to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs."

The temporary increase of about thirty thousand troops came to be called "the surge."

In September of two thousand seven, the top commander in Iraq reported to Congress that the violence was decreasing. The surge may have helped create the conditions for this change but there were other reasons as well. Middle East expert Judith Yaphe says many Iraqis decided to work with the Americans to defeat the insurgency.

JUDITH YAPHE: "The real truth is – and it's a good news story – that the Iraqis themselves saw that this was a greater danger to them, that there was nothing to be gained, the Sunnis of Iraq in particular, saw that al-Qaida was hurting them, that it was a danger to them, that there was much more to be gained by aligning with the US forces."

By the time President Bush was finishing his second term, Iraqi and American officials had agreed on a withdrawal date to end the war. The last American forces would leave Iraq by the end of twenty-eleven.

Russell Riley at the University of Virginia says it is too soon to know how history will judge the United States' actions in Iraq.

RUSSELL RILEY: "If Iraq proves to be a policy success, then the surge will be a critical turning point and a terrific exercise of presidential leadership."

He also points out that the war is not the only measure by which the forty-third president will be judged.

Professor Riley put it this way: "The great debate among historians will not be whether Bush was a powerful president or consequential president, but whether he directed those powers in the most fruitful way that he could have."

(MUSIC)

So, what else was going on in the United States during this period? Millions of people were voting for which singer should get a recording contract on "American Idol." Year after year it was the most popular show on television.

SIMON COWELL: "Oh, Robert, I think you just killed my favorite song of all time."

ROBERT: "Killed in a good way or a bad way?"

SIMON: "Killing is never good. There's never a happy killing."

ROBERT: "I'm sorry to hear that."

SIMON: "No, that was first degree on that one."

(MUSIC)

But the biggest story in music was not what people were listening to, but how. S本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。