Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
That's silly. It has been years since we left and years since we had much influence on how the Iraqi gov handled things both politically and militarily. From what I've read they've done a bunch of the idiot things we did in the beginning until we wised up.
As soon as the U.S. withdrew its military the Iraqi security forces reverted to the same kind of strong arm tactics Saddam carried out and the Americans did pre-Surge. That being raiding and then leaving areas, mass arrests, taking families hostage of people on wanted lists, indefinite detention, abuse and torture of prisoners, etc. The positives of U.S. style COIN never sunk in with Iraqis and they went back to what they were used to doing once we departed.