It is a good time to take stock of Iraq given our president's 2011 withdrawal plan and what Obama hopes will be the war's final supplemental funding request. Was this a war to be proud of? One answer we should pay attention to comes from liberal author and antagonist extraordinaire Christopher Hitchens.

In a series of essays and books written over the past seven years his position on the war has been consistent. In one particular 2008 article he lays out in great detail the events leading up to Bush's order to invade in the spring of 2003 and finishes with the following: "This is all overshadowed by the unarguable hash that was made of the intervention itself. But I would nonetheless maintain that this incompetence doesn't condemn the enterprise wholesale."

To Hitchens, skepticism about the prosecution of the war is pardonable. Defeatism is not.

It is best to read his early essays first as compiled in Hitchens' book, "A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq." Then go to www.hitchensweb.com and read his subsequent writings. When you finish you may be nodding in agreement with him that "Yes, major combat operations appear to be over, and to that extent one can belatedly say, mission accomplished." Indeed.

Gordon L. Shadle, Albany