Iraqi here says "get GIs out"

He cites blunders, says that's best option

By Rob Zaleski
November 14, 2005

It could have worked.

That's the first thing Mohammed Ameen wanted me to know as we settled into our chairs at an east side cafe last week.

Had the U.S. military not made a monumental strategic blunder, it might well have succeeded in rebuilding war-torn Iraq and transforming it into a democracy, he says.

But because the U.S. military made no attempt to seal Iraq's borders for at least a year after the March 2003 invasion, it blew any chance it had of succeeding, says Ameen, a 52-year-old Kurdish Iraqi who owns Ameen's Persian Rugs on Sherman Avenue.