As a veteran, William Smullen said he thinks about the war in Iraq a lot.

He thinks about the lives lost. He thinks about the money gone. He thinks about the hatred toward the United States that won’t be easy to overcome.

Having served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, Smullen, a Syracuse University alumnus, has experienced all of this firsthand, and what he is seeing now does not sit well with him. More recently, the war in Iraq isn’t making too many Americans happy, either.

More than half of Americans – 63 percent – want the country’s troops home from Iraq by the end of 2008, according to a recent Gallup poll. Almost as many – 57 percent – want the number of troops capped off. And of those unwilling to go that far, 40 percent want Congress to deny funding for a surge in troops to Iraq.

Gallup’s findings were published less than two weeks ago, and experts say the numbers differ only slightly from polls taken at the time of November’s mid-term election.

But CBS News reports men, military families and veterans, including some former soldiers that call SU their alma mater, are divided regarding the issue of troops in Iraq.

Smullen may be a veteran, but he’s always known exactly his position on this war.

The retired army colonel remembers vividly his cautionary words at a Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Thursday Morning Roundtable in October 2002. Smullen predicted the war would cost more than $200 billion, he said. It is now on its way to surpassing the Vietnam War, costing more than $500 billion.

‘Do I regret that we invaded Iraq? Yes, I do. To this day I do,’ said Smullen, who also served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Almost five years after the initial invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush is calling for an increase in troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president said this surge in troops will allow the United States to finish the job it started. Congress has yet to agree on a resolution either way on this proposal.

Smullen, now the director of national security studies at Maxwell and a public relations professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said he is wary of the troop increases because of the additional funds and additional lives it will cost.

But Smullen also said this war is breaking the army by putting a very large toll on soldiers and their families.

‘We’ve surged before and that has not resulted in success, which is why many people question this surge,’ he said.

Not all veterans are as opposed to the war in Iraq and the proposed troop increases as Smullen.

Mark LaGasse, a 2002 graduate from the military photojournalism program at Newhouse, recently retired as a senior master sergeant with the Air Force.

‘I don’t think people in the military think ‘Should we be here fighting this war?” he said. ‘My priorities are more narrow in that I don’t allow myself to get too political.’

LaGasse, who was at SU on Sept. 11, 2001, said the climate has changed a lot since then. At the time he felt isolated from his fellow troops at Scott Air Force base in Belleville, Ill. He wanted to be alongside them giving his support. And if that meant a future war in Iraq, so be it.

‘Going into Iraq – at the time it seemed like the thing to do,’ he said. ‘It turned into something that it wasn’t. Now we’re in a different kind of a war that we haven’t seen since Vietnam.’

Smullen also noted similarities between Iraq and Vietnam, most notably the insurgency and the disapproval of the war by the American people.

‘Even though the experts didn’t want to draw parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, the parallels are there,’ he said. ‘It took us a long time to admit this was an insurgency. That’s what Vietnam was.’

One of Smullen’s main concerns about the war in Iraq is the negative feelings citizens of other countries are harboring toward America. Smullen said he believes this consequence of the war – like it was in Vietnam – is one of the hardest to recover from.

LaGasse, however, thinks it shouldn’t matter what others think of the United States.

‘I absolutely support the work that the military is doing – the global War on Terror. We have to go hunt these people down and be in their business and in their faces,’ he said.

LaGasse was part of several humanitarian missions in Somalia and Bosnia and recalls the negative sentiment toward the United States there.

‘In Somalia – they still hated us and we were feeding them.’

As for Iraq, LaGasse said the United States is in a position where no outcome is perfect.

‘President Bush is sending more people to try to get control – I don’t know if it’s going to work,’ LaGasse said. ‘I’m hopeful that it does. If we were to leave, to just pull out, that isn’t the way to go. A gradual withdrawal would cost lives again for military people. As people keep leaving, others would become vulnerable and would die.’

On the other hand, Smullen’s convictions have sparked him to write opinion pieces for The Post-Standard, advocating for a new line of thinking in Iraq. In his most recent piece on Jan. 12, he called for a shift in American efforts. He suggested transferring the primary responsibilities to American diplomatic advisers to assist in preparing the Iraqis to handle security issues.

Smullen also says President Bush should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq immediately and continue to do so into 2008.

‘The only way this is going to have a long-term success story is if the Iraqi government, the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police forces take on the responsibility,’ he said. ‘This is now their country. They have to assume the responsibility for dealing with insurgency. I don’t think we’re making that transfer as rapidly and as successfully as we need to.’

Published on March 5, 2007 at 12:00 pm