Madam, - Charles Krauthammer, in decrying the apparent aversion of Democrats to "victory" in Iraq, fails to provide a fully coherent picture of what this "victory" would actually look like (Opinion, February 25th).
Would it require, as it does at present, the presence of hundreds of thousands of US troops to hold the country together? Would that presence necessitate further hundreds of billions of dollars being drained from the US treasury, over an indeterminate number of years? Would it further decrease America's global military prestige - tied down, as it would be, playing constabulary amid the sectarian tensions of Baghdad and Mosul?
Would American soldiers continue to die in an effort that has only tangential relation to national defence? Would America's global reputation continue to be degraded by prolonging an unpopular occupation by - in the estimation of Senator John McCain - 50, maybe 100 years? And if so, how is this scenario to be defined as "victory" in any real sense?
- Yours, etc,
SEAN COLEMAN, Lindisfarne Lawn, Clondalkin, Dublin 22.