'What did we go there for?'

Brooklyn Marine, whose symbolic toppling of Saddam Hussein statue lifted up a wartorn Iraq, has doubts a decade later

Ten years after the U.S. embarked on war to overthrow a Middle Eastern regime and destroy a villain to America, Edward Chin, who tied noose around neck of dictator's statue, wonders, 'What did we go there for?'

March 25, 2013 - There was no doubt in the young Marine’s mind when he clambered to the top of the enormous statue of Saddam Hussein, tied a noose around its neck — and tore down the graven image.

Brooklyn-born Edward Chin continued to believe in the mission, even as the U.S. death toll mounted in Iraq, even as Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction turned out to be a mirage.

Now, 10 years after Chin signaled to the world that Baghdad had fallen, he is not so certain.

“What did we go there for?” Chin asked. “As Marines, we just do our jobs. We go where we are told. We hope that our leaders make the right decisions.”

But the Iraq that’s cozying up to Iran and still splintered by sectarian strife is not the country his buddies died for, he said. read more>>>