As we pour more troops and treasure into Afghanistan, that war certainly demands our attention and deserves our questions.

However, as we wind down another war, as we finally begin to bring our troops home, as the deadline approaches to remove  all U.S. combat troops from Iraq, Americans are asking some questions about that war, too.

Perhaps most importantly,  After “[s]even years, $748 billion, 4,414 American servicemembers killed [a]nd more than 113,000 Iraqi civilians dead…After all the death and destruction — and rebirth and rebuilding — what difference did America really make in Iraq?”

Did the U.S. accomplish the goals stated by President George W. Bush when we invaded Iraq, “to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger”?

These are the questions the “military newspaper” Stars and Stripes is examining and attempting to answer this week in a series of five articles.

Today’s article by Heath Druzin looks at the “unintended consequences” of the Iraq war and at the unresolved issues that are left behind in “a country facing an uncertain future.”

These are the subsequent subjects:

DAY 2: The wounded
An American and an Iraqi soldier, each gravely wounded in the war, battle to recover.

DAY 3: The politicians
A veteran, and a veteran politician, navigate new battlegrounds.

DAY 4: The widows
One war widow tries to move on and another tries to survive.

DAY 5: The hometowns
A Baghdad neighborhood is divided by strife while an Ohio town pulls together.

Knowing the Stars and Stripes and its reporters, I know that these articles will be some of the most incisive and insightful narratives on a war that has lasted too long and that has cost too much, as perhaps best depicted in the chart “The Iraq war, by the numbers.”

Please follow this story at the Stars and Stripes over the next four days.

Image: Courtesy Stars and Stripes