Paladin, look up a book called "Fiasco" by Thomas E. Ricks- it's a fairly non-biased and concise account of the whole affair. Basically what happened is that the Administration pursued their goal of invading Iraq entirely on ideological grounds. Their rationale, and all of their solutions were based on ideology. Whenever reality contradicted their ideology and dogma, they ignored it or fought vigorously to discredit or silence those who put forth the heretical viewpoint. Let's look at a few examples:

1) The Commander of the United States Army, General Eric Shinseki openly stated that the post-invasion operation would require several hundred thousand troops for several years to be done properly and would be the most dangerous part of the operation. This contradicted Rumsfeld's and Feith's ideological belief that the Iraqis would gladly sing "freedom" and start buying freedom fries and big macs as soon as Saddam and the Baath party were out of power. This was a naive belief, as any and every nation on earth (especially after a tumultous overthrow of it's entire previous system) requires a lot of TLC and intensive manpower to maintain security and rebuild it's infrastructure. Rumsfeld and Feith believed that within 6 months there would be less than 30,000 U.S personnel to provide military advisors and airbases in country.

In the end, Shinseki turned out to be right and Rumsfeld, Feith and Wolfowitz (the main propopents of the invasion) were wrong. This is illustrated by the fact that we are now in year 6 of the occupation, there are still + 130,000 U.S military (far, far more if you count the mercenary forces aka 'security contractors') in country and the U.S has had approximately 35,000 casualties (dead + wounded)

2) In the lead up to the invasion, the CIA and various military intelligence reports came back stating that there was indeed no grounds for believing that Iraq had any substantial WMD's or capacity to produce such or mount any kind of attack against the U.S, either directly or indirectly. What happened was Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz were established in a government organization called the "Office of Special Plans" or some such thing (may not be the exact title, I'll double-check) What this office was responsible for was being the focal point for all intel on Iraq. Whenever a report came in stating that there was no grounds for invasion, they sent it back saying "not good enough, re-write it" This is a clear indication of refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation in favor of pursuing an ideological goal. Rather than gather intel and THEN make a decision based on that, they had already made the decision and were "fixing" the intel (this means lying) to support their decision. This is further illustrated by the downing street memo Catguy mentioned earlier.

3) When things started going contrary to the "greeted as liberators" plan that had been cooked up, again there was a refusal to acknowledge reality. There are documented cases both during and shortly after the invasion in which high ranking military officers (division level commanders) sent requests up the chain saying "what do we do once we've won?" To which the reply, if any came, was "don't worry about it, we're working on it". The truth is there was no comprehensive plan for post invasion security or reconstruction. This is because, again, the proponents were basing everything on their ideology. According to that ideology, once Iraq was "free" from Saddam everything would be great. The free market would magically step in and within a few months everyone would be happy. They never planned or made any provisions to look after the water supply, power grid, phone system, police and security, food distribution, all of the things that make up the basic framework for a modern society to exist. By the time the CPA started to get to those things it was already too little too late, AND the CPA made the further error of operating on an ideological basis as well. Which leads to the next blunder

The CPA- was one of the biggest flops in modern history and a textbook example of how NOT to govern a country. Why? Again, it was all based on ideology of free markets and "natural" economic forces with no regard for the reality on the ground. 

The CPA was staffed by the wrong people. It should have been comprised of folks who had experience in working abroad and re-building war-torn countries. Instead, it was mostly staffed by people loyal to the Republican party who had little or no experience outside of the United States. A mid-twenty something former intern for the Republican party, for example, was tasked with the responsibility of creating the Iraqi stock market even though he had no experience in that area at all. These kinds of staffing choices permeated the whole department. Because the CPA was staffed almost entirely by people with no actual experience in the jobs they were given, all of their decisions were based on their conservative ideology. That ideology called for a minimum of government control or intervention, and that "the free market" would magically cure all ills. Part of this free market ideology meant that the country was opened up to foreign business. This meant big firms from the U.S, Dubai, Kuwait bidding on and winning major reconstruction contracts. This meant foreign companies coming into Iraq with foreign workers, overcharging vast sums of money for their work, while unemployed Iraqis could do nothing but sit around and watch while foreigners came in to do piecemeal work. Meanwhile the basic services that everyone depended on, like water, sewer and power were mostly neglected as the major contracts went after things like building new government offices and repairing pipelines etc.

So, going back to # 3, people started getting angry and rebelling. This went contrary to the "greeted as liberators" plan (or lack thereof). When this happened, instead of saying "oh man, we screwed up!" the administration did what it does best..... it stuck to ideology!

Their line of thinking therefore was this:

"We've given freedom, the greatest gift possible to the Iraqi people but now someone's attacking our soldiers and the interim government we're putting together. Since we're blameless and have done everything right, the only possible reason why people are shooting at us HAS to be that foreign terrorists who hate freedom have infilitrated the country and that's why we're being attacked."

Again, the Administration and CPA refused to acknowledge the reality that many Iraqis were unhappy with the state of affairs and were resisting. They refused to acknowledge that there was an uprising of mostly local origin, and that that uprising could have been avoided entirely if they would have had a more concrete plan for post invasion security and reconstruction beyond "the free market".

So, they did what they do best. Ignore the facts and stick to ideology. This led to an increase of force. This led to the "compassionate" act of levelling the entire city of Fallujah and arming various militia groups to go after each other, knowing full well that they would also go after innocents who belonged to rival groups as well. This led to raids on entire neighborhoods in which all military age males found were instantly suspect and rounded up for further questioning. This led to the use of illegal and immoral interrogation techniques that contradict the Geneva convention of treatment of prisoners, all in the quest to get "actionable" intelligence.

Paladin, Catguy has provided more than enough proof which is easily verified and can be found with a few minutes of searching online. For the record, Carter was one of the best presidents in the history of the great country that is the United States of America and his legacy will live on far, far longer and be seen as a helper of humanity around the world long after Bush has faded into obscurity.

You are correct. I was referring to the comments made by the likes of Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney that we would be greeted as liberators with flowers and the like littering the ground to pave the way. I never stated that Bush is solely to blame for this, and it has been well documented that much of his decisions on this issue were based on the counsel he received from his neocon handlers (many of whom I listed at the beginning of this paragraph) If anything Bush has a cowboy mentality and a desire to be a "war president" without ever having gone to war (a dangerous combination) This is nothing new, and has been seen in leaders down through the ages who enjoy playing "dress up soldier" without ever knowing the consequences of their actions. It is well documented that Bush greatly admired the British PM Margaret Thatcher, and the way she turned public sentiment to her favour with the Falklands war. Bush has been quoted in the past stating that what Thatcher did was the key to good leadership- that, being to engage in a short, victorious war.

Whereas the British had the Falkland Islands invaded by Argentina, Bush wanted to use 9/11 as his excuse for a short victorious war. If he really were truly concerned about "the war on terror" he would have thrown everything after getting Bin Laden and stuck with it as he was the one who actually perpetrated 9/11. Instead we see a very brief, limited campaign in Afghanistan followed up by "the main show" against Iraq which had absolutely nothing to do with it in the first place. There was far more emphasis, manpower and materiel expended on getting Saddam than there ever was getting Bin Laden.

So, Bush wanted his short war, and Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz and the like said "here you go... invade Iraq!" People like Wolfowitz believed strongly that invading Iraq would be a short campaign and that post-invasion security and reconstruction would be a breeze because of military actions carried out by John Abizaid in defending the Kurdish northern area of Iraq in the years after GW-1.

This was a little publicized campaign in which U.S airpower combined with Kurdish ground forces and very limited U.S ground forces effectively kept much of the Iraqi army out of the north and unable to do serious dammage to Kurdish fighters. The U.S forces involved were very small, depended on speed and C3 more than brute firepower and of course good air support. They believed that using this same formula across all of Iraq would have the same effect, but didn't think about the fact that the Kurdish north was the exception to the rule, very different from the rest of the country. 

So in short, Bush's handlers and closest confidants had a pipe dream that Iraq would be a short, victorious war that would coincide nicely with their geo-political goals (Iran would have been next, had things gone the way they wanted) Bush, while not an evil or sinister fellow, wanted a war that would make him look good and decisive ( he was poo-pooed from going after Afghanistan too heavily by Rumsfeld who complained that there were no good targets there) and rather than excercise the art that is statesmanship, he jumped at the first opportunity he was given to be the CIC of a "real war".

That's funny... I thought this article was about why Bush's approval rating was so low. Obama is extraneous to this debate, except perhaps for the fact that he was against the invasion in the first place. Stating that the argument is about whether or not to keep forces in Iraq skips over a vital point.... that being that the invasion should have never occurred in the first place. The where and how this conflict may end is another debate entirely. The points that I'm going after are

1) It never should have happened in the first place

2) After it did happen, even though it was wrong, the U.S had an opportunity to pull off a big win. Iraqi sentiment was very hopeful shortly after the invasion, but it quickly soured when they realized that the basic necessities were not being looked after (no real plan for rebuilding the country after effectively smashing it to bits) The U.S fumbled the ball and have been playing defense ever since.

In regards to the next step, a nice place to start perhaps would be an apology. "Sorry we needlessly invaded your country, we screwed up!" would probably be a good start for Mr. Bush. Instead he will never apologize to the Iraqi people that he authorized a needless war of choice.

As to stating that the Republicans are "for" keeping troops in Iraq and that democrats are "against" keeping troops in Iraq that is an oversimplification. If it really were true, the democratic congress would have pulled funding for the war more than a year ago. Instead they've authorized hundreds of billions (just another 165 billion the other day, actually) with no strings attached to keep the occupation going, despite the fact that your domestic economy aint doing so hot.

I've no love for the democrats or Obama, btw, nor am I one of their chearleaders.

As for the summer war of 2006 that Israel lost against Hezbollah, again it is an oversimplification. The IDF had long had a plan to get rid of Hezbollah and the cross border incident in which IDF soldiers were killed and captured (which goes back to existing hostage-exchange negotiations falling apart, which is yet another story) was used as the justification for levelling entire areas of Beirut and other heavily populated civillian areas in a failed attempt to smash Hezbollah's launch sites and areas of operation (launch sites that were largely mobile so the bombardment had almost no effect except for killing civillians AND turning public sentiment further in favour of Hezbollah). In no way am I justifying or defending Hezbollah's actions, but it does take two to tango! The whole point of the 2006 summer war was to get rid of Hezbollah so that Israel would have removed one of it's main threats on their border. Then they would be able to focus on going after Iran without having to worry about rocket attacks from the north.

Journalist Seymour Hirsh has a very concise piece written all about this in which senior IDF officials approached the Pentagon months in advance for U.S green light approval of their plan. Also, the use of massive airpower to go after hardened underground facilities was to serve as a showcase or dress rehearsal for what would ideally be reproduced on Iran after the Hezbollah threat was neutralized (a dress rehearsal that DID not go according to plan!)

I agree with Dr Guy, you stated your opinion honestly. However, I cannot agree with your particular viewpoint. I HAVE deeply researched this issue and found that George W. Bush is negligent in his role as leader of the free world. There are too many unanswered questions regarding the way the twin towers collapsed to ignore that there might have been other, more local, influences. Why are sheeple ready to disbelieve the evidence before them? There are too many faux pas to overlook. Coincidence? I seriously doubt it.

Once again, your opinion is your own and a lot of uninterested people seem to carry the same thoughts. I fear they are having trouble getting past the blinders they wear so regularly.

Once again, as Dr. Guy said so eloquently, don't confuse your opinion with any real facts.