What is Iraq: Lessons Learned?

Five years into the Iraq war, Americans are left groping for answers. Are we safer? Can America's image be repaired? What are the lasting implications for our Constitution?

Historians will spend decades examining this conflict, its causes, its conduct, and its consequences, but those left to grapple with the immediate policy implications must do so without the benefit of the perspective that time can often provide.

What lessons should we draw from Iraq today so that we, as a nation, learn from this painful experience? Iraq: Lessons Learned is an initiative to begin answering those questions.

The American Security Project asked some of the nation's best minds - military, policy, academic, political, business, religious, media and community - to ponder this question and provide insights from which we can all benefit.

Iraq: Lessons Learned is neither pro-war nor anti-war; rather it is designed to engage leading figures from across American society in fresh thinking about America's experience in Iraq to help us uncover the broad impact of the war on American society, from our financial markets and university classrooms to our supermarket aisles and our courtrooms.

We expect this project to produce compelling, thought-provoking and occasionally controversial ideas about how we can leverage this experience to secure a better, safer future.