Pauline, The US didn't kill a million people. The insurgents did. And it is by insurgent efforts that the infrastructure was not rebuilt and that Iraq is as poor a country as it is. If the US didn't contribute over a trillion dollars, thousands of lives, tens of thousands in wounded, and in sum over time hundreds of thousands of young citizens in their prime into harms way, the result would've been a genocidal civil war and a far higher death toll. It is true that by selling and launching the Iraq war Bush put into motion a series of events that do what you say, but Bush was an idiot. Not just in the sense of his scruples, but also in his IQ, in his expectations. All indications from inside information suggest he didn't predict what happened; he thought it would be a win win situation: Iraq becomes a democratic success story, its economy recovers from our sanctions, US companies develop the oil fields, and if there are WMDs, and although he exaggerated the case for them the administration did believe they were there, then the security threat is removed. As it occurred, the war made no economic sense for the US; there are much cheaper ways politically and monetarily to funnel money to defense contractors and oil companies. The people who ignited the war were and remain morally flexible rationalizing fools. Whatever you think of them, and of the country they controlled and manipulated, no one can't go back in time and change what they did. The past is irrevocable. Most Americans agree the war was a mistake, and Vietnam syndrome has retaken hold in the US. The Iraqis need to defeat their inner demons, and focusing on disparaging the US troops that have saved the country from apocalypse is to ignore the useful message for the present. This is that the terrorists, and not the US troops, are those who are defiling the sanctity of human life on a massive scale; who are attempting to ignite a genocidal civil war for the sake of their own hate.

"I can understand that people want to bash the US and the UK for this and indeed it is, in an essential way, our fault. But frankly, the people who should be most blamed for this are the people who actually did it." In a stable, unified country yes...but Iraq is not that. Bush went in there and destroyed the infrastructure stole power from the Sunni, installed a Shia government, promoted a civil war, slaughtered up to a million Iraqis, made 4 million Iraqis homeless either abroad or in Iraq, their own country, and in a dazzleing show of imperialist arrogance, stole Iraqi oil for US companies, and yet you have the NERVE to talk about this as if it were a simple crime in a stable, unified country? You PRETEND we are not a OCCUPATION. I have no dog in this fight; as far as I'm concerned, ANY elite exploits workers and so for me, its a matter of not getting caught in the crossfire, or if we do, if we must, using it to our own advantage. I care nothing for Islam either. However, it is a simple fact that invasion and occupation is a serious business, and it is dangerous, it just IS. The fact that we are carefully fed a framework of delusion and lies about it all makes it no less dangerous and lethal.