'Iraq has really become Somalia…a collection of different militias'

Well, it’s been propagated by the right and accepted by the left in the US that the surge, which is really an escalation of troops—“surge” is just a euphemism—the escalation of troops by 30,000 soldiers, somehow brought peace to Iraq. And this is just an absolute lie. Violence has subsided somewhat in Baghdad, that’s true, but it’s not the result of the increase in American troops directly. . . .

We created a civil war in Iraq, or at least we caused it. Iraq, a country that had never experienced a civil war, we did that to them.