Letter: Vision of Iraq as a true ally

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006 | 12:31 p.m.

When Iraq has a stable, democratically elected government and an army capable of defending it, and when it has hospitals for the people and schools to educate its children, and when its oil wells are in good repair and its economy is self-supporting once more, our troops will then be able to leave.

The Iraqi people will always remem ber the sacrifices our country made for them. They will erect monuments to our benevolence and a statue of President Bush. There will be a memorial to the American soldiers who bravely gave their lives for a better Iraq. There will be a holiday celebrating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the birth of Democracy.

Iraq will then be the second bastion of defense against Muslim terrorism. Its government will be there for us when the rest of the oil cartel wants to hurt us by cutting back oil supplies. Iraq will be a bulwark against Iran and will happily permit us to use its air space in the event of a war in the area.

The country's newspapers and television stations will help counter the anti-American propaganda from Al-Jazeera. Its schools will teach their students to protest peacefully and to tolerate other religions and not to hate Christians and Jews.

And we will all live happily ever after.

Stanley R. Goldfarb, Las Vegas