Philip Carter

The following viewpoint was written shortly after the end of major hostilities in the 2003 U.S.-led war on Iraq. With Saddam Hussein’s regime destroyed and its leaders either captured, killed, or missing, the United States faced the problem of maintaining order and stability in the nation. Philip Carter argues that while the United States had deployed enough troops to wage a successful war against Hussein’s regime, it underestimated the number of soldiers necessary to prevent widespread lawlessness and chaos in Iraq once the war was over. Such problems should have been anticipated based on past U.S. peacekeeping experiences in Bosnia and Afghanistan, he contends. Carter, a law student and former army officer, writes frequently on legal and military issues.

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