After viewing CBS' "60 Minutes" first segment {Sunday, Feb. 25}, I settled back with a sigh{or was that a groan?}. The premise was that Iraq combat veterans had turned against the war, that the cost was too great, that the war in Iraq was no longer worth prosecuting. Polls were cited showing that most Americans have turned against the war.
     I too believe that the Iraq war has lasted too long, that the costs in killed and wounded is too great, that the war is breaking the bank. I'm more than disillusioned with President Bush;I'm downright disgusted with the President's Iraq policy. It is at this point that my views diverge sharply fom the defeatists and I suspect I have alot of company.
     I don't want a withdrawal either abruptly or on a time table. I don't want a redeployment.I want VICTORY! Unambiguous, we won, victory. Instead the President pursues a policy of restraint, saddles our troops with restrictive rules of engagement, and pursues a political settlement with people who want us dead. If the government is unwilling to commit overwhelming force against an enemy, and once committed,utterly crushing that enemy,then troops should NOT be put in harm's way. And that sentiment, I suspect, is the gut feeling many
in the public have concerning war in general and Iraq in particular.
    The anti-war left would like the public to buy in to the perception that Iraq is an unwinnable quagmire that we should never have gotten involved in. Whether we should or shouldn't have, we're there now. My fervent hope is that there remain enough people who feel as I do for America to triumph.