As Iraqis stop living in fear, end of Iraq war is at hand (headline as written)

'The war in Iraq is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won."

When I wrote this on my Web site a few days ago, I set off a mini-firestorm. Perhaps because I have spent more time embedded with combat troops in Iraq than any journalist I know - and have interviewed countless Iraqis and members of the coalition military.

But I stand by my words, just as I stood by my assertion of February 2005 that Iraq was in a state of civil war, and later understood that Al Qaeda was its proximate cause. Those statements went against the vested interests of both Bush supporters who didn't want to admit how bad the situation was in Iraq, and war critics, who didn't want to admit that much of it was Al Qaeda's fault.

Back then, both sides brought out their dictionaries and muddied the water by arguing semantics: What exactly do you mean by a civil war? What exactly do you mean by Al Qaeda?

Read the whole thing, it's not only accurate, it's good.