I think this simply finesses the real issue, which is how and when to disengage from Iraq. I'm not going to read any more punditry that doesn't address this point specifically.

I disagree. While I think the report downplays the civil war 'status' of the sectarian conflict, I think it does a good job of avoiding 'false hope' and is quite clear that there is no clean solution. I also think that framing a policy around 'the consequences of our defeat' is neither productive nor sensible. It reminds everyone of a past that can't be changed instead of focusing people on a future that can be affected by many players.

Most of all, even if Ira is 'lost,' the US has an obligation to try and clean its mess as best as possible before leaving. Doing so in the context of a broad Middle East policy of active engagement with friends and foes could give the US much needed policy continuity in the region. The real false hopes are that the administration can swallow such a strategy and that long-term bipartisanship can actually materialize to execute on any policy.

The report was brutally frank with the facts, and decidedly "realist" with the recommendations.

Yes. And that is why the administrations retort was 'Jim Baker can go back to his day job, now.

Bush does not give 2 wits about the ISG report. He is going to continue to 'stay the course' as his 'new way forward' because he knows as the 'decider' there is simply not a darn thing the American public can do about it. Bush has no incentive to change course, and he isn't. Which is why his daddy broke down in public sobbing, from the realization of the enormity and magnitude what he has put upon the world stage and the complete and uttter catastrophe his son is for America.

 Bush is to America what Katrina was to New Orleans.

The problem is Bush, and the 79 or so recommendations should have focused more on this central idea.

Trust is the first issue. Assume the president admits that every fact in the report is at least mostly true. How can we, citizens, believe that tomorrow will bring a president who will admit the reality on the ground.

Example: at the president's press conference with Blair, Bush used the word 'bad', then after a nervous chuckle quickly substituted the word 'tough'. Tough is a perfect word for Bush, and allows him to avoid reality. Things are tough, and you can move forward, but 'bad' is even a little bit better than 'grave'. Somehow Bush believes that things have moved forward from 'grave' to 'bad' in one day. But it was tough going and he did it. Tomorrow might also be tough, but the situation will be moving forward, or Bush will be looking for 'a way forward'. And as long as you are looking for 'a way forward', it doesn't matter if the situation is 'bad' or 'grave'.

But the issue remains: how will we know if the situation is improving or not? Who will we believe? Do we need to appoint another commission now? How did the commission come to this conclusion? Did they have facts that were unavailable to the president? We need the conclusions to be those of the president. The president has to believe, and he first needs to realize that there is not trust.

How can he get that trust? The best way is to go against your interests. He has to give up things we know that are dear to him:

1. Stop managing the message. Stop hacking the language, stop appearing to put positive spin on facts, and stop attacking people who don't agree 100%.

2. Tax the rich; tax those who profit from war. Currently we are devastating Iraq with death and our own country with increasing debt. The illusion is over on all fronts, and that includes the ability to wage war with an army and kick the financial impact down the road. If you don't like taxes, give up one of your children and give a tax break for those 'fighting the war' or with children doing so. 100% tax break, why not?

If Bush and his supporters don't bleed, they cannot claim that this is a fight for civilization. No one should trust those who ask you to be the first, and last, to suffer.

. . . we need to focus on restoring our standing in the Middle East. That requires talking to all of the countries in the region — not just our friends, but also our foes. Above all, it requires a serious effort to try to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict once and for all.

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
    You got to have a dream,
     If you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Defining the situation in Iraq in terms of victory and defeat or win or loss is like taking extreme positions. Taking extreme positions diminishes the chance of developing any viable strategy, as all the options are lost in the debate.

Iraq is mired in a sectarian violence/civil war and it is true that the US army currently is not a deciding factor in Iraq, still, calling it a lost cause or sticking to stay until victory will not change a thing on the ground.

There are multiple factors that can still turn Iraq around without putting labels of victory or defeat on any solution.

It is apparent from all reports from Iraq that the Iraqis are not exactly pleased with the US army role in their country. At home, we are not pleased with the political/diplomatic handling of the situation by the Bush administration.

The ISG report has attempted to address both issues and it does provide a framework to build on it.

The role of the US army in Iraq needs to be redefined as the ISG reports suggests and diplomatically, the US should open itself to options that convey to Americans that the US still has the ability to change the course in Iraq.

I think the first step in Iraq would be to gradually remove the US armies from the combat situations as they have so far failed to insert effectively to stop the sectarian violence.

Move most of the troops to the Green Zone and allow the local administrators and forces, in whatever stage of training they are, to deal with their people as best they can. There is a strong possibility that this will lead to an upsurge in violence initially but once the Iraqis begin to deal with each other, communicate in the language they understand, the situation will improve gradually.

The tribal cultures are not all about revenge and annihilations or all religious conflicts lead to a complete destruction of all communication channels between the warring parties. The Iraqis, despite their religious/tribal differences, still communicate in the same language and still understand each other’s religion, culture, and priorities. They have more in common than the current situation portrays. Allow the intermediaries amongst the tribes and the religious factions to deal with the day-to-day situations.

At home, it is so obvious now that the ultimate goal of this administration, from the very beginning, was to stay in Iraq for as long as possible or build permanent bases there for a long haul. The strategy was clearly to allow some conflicts in Iraq to fester to justify the presence of the US forces there. Unfortunately, they handled the situation so poorly that the violence is now out of control and the US army personals have been exposed to some major causality risks.

The US administration instead of announcing a timetable right away, should first announce that it is rolling back its plans of a long-term stay or permanent bases in Iraq.

Let us not call the failure of a faulty policy as defeat in Iraq. It is a grim situation; we need to explore as many options as we can instead of taking extreme positions.

Like any US politician is willing or able to pressure Israel? LOL!

The ISG did all those outside the Administration a service regardless of whether the Administration initially chooses to put it on the shelf.

1. The picture of what is is accepted as a decent analysis of where we are. That is worth a lot.

2.The report confirms what most have been saying to date that there are no good options only bad and worse. Now the only debate is whether their ideas are the bad or the worse option. I look at what they said as the bad option.

3.We are all concerned there is a low probability of creating a better future but there is some hope (and hope is not a bad thing it is just an assessment of a low probability.)

4. Side benefits

A side benefit of the report is that it "frames" the discussion. The White House has lost control of framing (at least for a while) and that alone is a good thing. Another side benefit is that it was a consensus report. Consensus is good politics and the antithesis of the Administrations righteous - good bad - politics.

Last what more could they have done in consensus mode regarding a disastrous situation? It is a way forward and it puts the US on the way to the inevitiable path of getting out. They just added some steps. I didn't expect more.

Just because there appears to be no possibility of stabilizing Iraq in a way that satisfies the interests of the American foreign policy apparat, that does not mean there is no possibility for a stable Iraq.

The odds are lousy, but myopia makes them worse.
American nationalism under the banner of internationalism...

From NYT Opinions

To the Editor:

Your front-page article says that rather than embracing President Bush’s goal of “victory in Iraq” .. ... the panel chose instead the formulation that Mr. Bush has adopted most recently: to establish a country that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself.”

Wasn’t that precisely the situation that existed in Iraq before our invasion? Warren Nadel

New York, Dec. 7, 2006

Let's recap the paradoxical verbiage:

Read slowly, emphasizing credibility:

I
could not meet with Maliki
in Iraq,
because
violence in Baghdad
is out of control.
For security reasons,
the Secret Service
would not allow
me
to go to Iraq,
where
I,
your commander,
am "building a stable democracy"
for them.
We
need less
democracy
here,
because
I
am in command
of
you now;
I
make
Habeas corpus
disappear.
You
obey,
or you
don't love your country.
Clear?

J. McCutchen

US combat forces launched the Battle for Baghdad in late June to coincide with the announcement of the "unity government". Within weeks, the US announced a major "revision" to Operation Together Forward which included the addition of 15-20.000 US troops. Sectarian violence in Baghdad steadily worsened. The Operation was declared a failure and quietly terminated in September.

Even now events in Iraq are confirming Ivo's assessment. There is no government to unify and strengthen. There is no Iraqi army, only sectarian armies for the US to train. The Kurds reject the recommendations to delay the Kirkuk referendum; to negotiate with Sunni insurgents; to share newly discovered oil revenues, and to seek a larger role for Turkey or Iran in stabilizing the country. George Bush won't negotiate with Syria or Iran nor will he countenance an exit date in 2008 or in any later year. The Israelis, who ten days ago lavished praise on Bush's invasion, seem to be seized with a mild panic attack over the ISG's call for a new peace effort and recommendation for diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria.

According to the latest (pre-report) AP/Ipsos poll 71% of Americans favor withdrawal over a two year period while while 60% would back a six month timetable.Three recent polls found that between 60% and 80% of Iraqis want all US troops out of their country within a year or sooner. This transnational consensus is all the more remarkable for the fact that setting a withdrawal schedule is about the only issue that unifies Iraqis.

The report is only two days old and events having already overtaken several key recommendations will soon render most of the rest equally superfluous.

Yet the ISG's 79 action items will not have died in vain for as unintended(?) consequence, the Report will have hastened the day when policymakers and the public will come to accept the reality of failure and develop a realistic strategy for mamaging its consequences

As a result, what has surprised me has been the Democrat response to the report - sadly, echoed here in Ivo's post. The report is a super-sized, GHWB-initialled stick with which to smack Junior. The report could hardly be more brutal on the policy-makers - read DUBYA'S PEOPLE, with Congress's help - who got us into the mess in Iraq. And, just for good measure, they have lied repeatedly about how bad a mess it has become. Just read it, it's in the report.

I fear Dems are upset about what the report is not - a clear roadmap out of Iraq - when they should be grateful for what it is - a savage attack on the President.

That's one way to look at it. Another way is that when you have a problem the first step to resolving it is to first, identify the problem. Identifying the problem is a huge step and goes a long ways towards reaching a solution. The second step, though is even harder and that is to find a solution for the problem. While you certainly cannot find solutions until you identify the problem, simply identifying the problem is not enough.

THAT is the point the DEMS are making. A big so what.  sighs of exasperation and rolling  eyes at this ISG report identifying a problem the dems addressed months and months ago and that the voters clearly understood when they swept the Dems back into the majority in both houses... the report, hoever, does nothing to come up with a solution. In fact, it basically says there is no way out that is a good option  Thee is no such thing as a clear roadmap out of Iraq. That there is no clear roadmap only emphasizes the magnitude of the catastrophe in the WH. This is not a Democratic problem, it is a GOP problem and America is going to have a helluva time doing anything to rectify this.

Furthermore, the public already knows we have an incompetent nitwit claiming to be the 'decider' in the WH who is so recalcitrant that he will refuse to find a 'new way forward' other than 'staying the course' INDEPENENT of the recommendations in the report. Bush commissioned another report from his own cabinet even BEFORE the ISG could finish there report.

So, it simply does no good to beat him over the head with the report cause it will change NOTHING. His fecklessness, and incompetence have already been exposed to anyone who is paying attention including the Army Navy and AIR Force generals as well as former Presidents and heads of NSA have all said...if the central front on the war on terror is Iraq we are losing it.

What more do the Dems need to say??.  I think they should simply sit back and watch the GOP party implode with Bush taking the entire party down in flames.  He is like the band on the Titanic who kept playing music as it sank, so the passengers would have nice music to drown to.

If I understand your question, I am speculating that the current situation in Iraq represents a de facto split of Iraq into three main factions and that if we, with the help of the international community, manage the split, it is more likely to lead to an outcome that is satisfactory to Iraq's neighbors--that is defined, discrete Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite states. That is by no means guaranteed, for example, because Turkey has indicated that it will no permit an independent Kurdish state. However, that is what diplomacy is about -- finding a way for mutual assurances between a nascent Kurdish government and the Turkish government to satisfy both with respect to security. The Saudis are concerned that if US forces leave, a dominant Shiite government and military will violently oppress the Sunni population -- especially that in Baghdad and vicinity. Iran is interested in a friendly Shiite state, and is willing to act to protect it. There are ties between people like Al Sistani and Al Sadr and the Iranian clerics. Part of managing the fragmentation of Iraq would have to be to do it in a way that keeps the neighboring states calm.

My larger point is that I think the wrong questions are being asked. There is no point in asking whether we are winning or losing. Of course we are not winning in terms of the goals that the Bush administration has described. Forcing George Bush to say we're losing is not going to change anything.

Should we stay the course, should we pull out right away, should we give training one more try while redploying combat troops? In each case, either the intended outcome of these policies is extremely unlikely (creation of a stable pan-Iraqi state) or the implementation (as in just pulling out) will be a hugely magnified humanitarian catastrophe.

I think we have to frame the debate differently. I am suggesting that the question that should be asked is this: What is the outcome with the least amount of additional human suffering whose achievement is also highly probable? At this point, the creation of a viable government of national unity looks to be extremely improbable. Yet this is goal that the recommendations of the Baker commission are intended to achieve.

When I look at Iraq right now, it seems to me that it is a failed state that is already in the process of breaking apart into three separate states. This breakup is the most probable outcome. I argue, therefore, that we should devise a strategy to manage this inevitable break-up in such a way as to do the least additional harm to the Iraqi people (and our own people in Iraq). I think this is the responsible way for us to proceed at this point, and I say this as one bitterly opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the very beginning.

"Like any US politician is willing or able to pressure Israel? LOL!"-- hass

Absolutely right, hass, no U.S. politician except maybe Cynthia Mckinney (oh, I forgot, she's gone) and wacko Kucinich will do that. Thank g-d.

Israel could consist entirely of the small area of West Jerusalem known as Mea Shearim, never have set foot in Gaza, the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and Iran and Syria would still want to destroy it. Baker is just still pissed that patriotic Americans--both Christian and Jewish--prevented him and Bush 41 from sucessfully pressuring Shamir in 1991. Israel making concessions to thugs in Hamas and Hezbollah would have absolutely no positive effect on U.S. success in Iraq. Those concessions would only encourage both the Hezbollah trained thugs and the al Quida thugs there to continue killing us in Iraq, London, Madrid, Buenos Aries, Manhattan and who knows where else.

"... Baker and Hamilton put Congress to shame (albeit in the most appropriately diplomatic way)."

If there's one thing I've learned from the past 6 years it's that neither Congress nor George Bush listen to or care a damn about what other people say. Hamilton delivered a message but not one of those that should have heard it did. Those that didn't get booted out in November don't think they did anything wrong. (Those that did get booted probably don't think so either but they don't matter anymore.) Sorry, the ISG was a good attempt but Bush has already said "I don't think the Baker Commission itself thinks all 79 recommendations should be enacted" despite Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton saying repeatedly that they should. So that's the end of that.

Fair enough. The Saudis have stated that they might have to intervene IF the US withdraws, which implies to me that they are unlikely to intervene if the US does not withdraw. I think Iran is unlikely to intervene directly because it would put their forces in direct conflict with ours. I think they realize that would be disastrous for them. That does not mean that Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia will not intervene in the sense that they channel supplies or funding to their favored factions. Our military make claims that the Iranians and Syrians are doing this (although I have NEVER seen any credible evidence of this presented, have you?). There are recent reports that the Saudi government is funding Sunni insurgents.

It's just my opinion that it seems unlikely that any neighboring state will attempt a direct military intervention in Iraq if there are significant US forces present because of fear of retaliation by the US. That is not, however, an argument for "staying" in Iraq.

What we need is an objective that has a high likelyhood of success. And the break-up of Iraq into independent states is not only likely, it is already happening.

J. McCutchen

J. McCutchen

Well said. However, the current definition of victory remains "a unified, democratic Iraq able to defend itself against internal and external threats."

Such a noble enterprise. Such a fool's errand.

The US cannot achieve this "victory". Once we've acknowledged the failure, we could develop specific policies around a different reality - failure toward a different end - mimizing adverse consequences.

The ISG report's analysis is unimpeachable. The policy recommendations, as Ivo points out, do not follow from the analysis of the reality on the ground ie failure is no longer an option.

In the concrete, this would seem to require:

I suspect that the Democrats will beat Bush over the head with the ISG's analysis and core recommendations - military disengagement, political and diplomatic initiative. Within the ISG framework, there will be variations in emphasis and specifics among them but the ISG has returned the "F" word (failure) to the lexicon and has made the "W" word (cut and run) downright respectable in polite political conversation.

I've often heard George Bush talk about the transformative power of liberty and how Democracy is God's gift to all mankind. If it's as wonderful as he says you'd think the Iraqis would be clammoring to get it instead of fighting tooth and nail to avoid it. If it's as wonderful as Bush says how come we have to cram it down their throats to the tune of nearly $350 Billion, nearly 3,000 US soldiers dead and something like 600,000 Iraqi civilians dead? Does Bush and his advisers ever ask themselves that?

Well said. However, the current definition of victory remains "a unified, democratic Iraq able to defend itself against internal and external threats."

I.e., "victory" = the state of Iraq before the invasion

on edit: well, minus the "democratic" part of course. But that's not in the cards anyway.

The US cannot achieve this "victory".

Correct: the US's war can hardly be the thing that prevents Iraq falling into failed-state status, since the war is what is causing Iraq to fall into failed-state status.

Not that I'm disagreeing, mind you. We still have to somehow deal with the particulars in as responsible a manner as possible, given that we are still hobbled by a delusional president and a barely functional government. So all the specifics matter. But overall the structural situation is what it is. You can get out the wrags and cleaning liquids and ameliorate the situation as much as possible, and it's our moral responsibility to do that. But ultimately, as Atrios says, you can't unsh*t the bed. The "loss" of Iraq was inherent in the act of invading it in the first place. Which pretty much renders the whole concept of losing and winning incoherent.

Excellent post, Ivo. Both your post and most of the comments make telling points. Having said that, I would like to suggest the ISG report, administration policy, and publicly expressed congressional opinions are undercut by a shared assumption that is demonstrably false and critical to the rational behind most of the proposals.

The assumption is that the U.S. still has the ability to dictate either the shape or the actions of the Iraqi government. This is no longer true, yet another ship that has sailed, unless we are willing to arrest the Iraqi leadership and install another Coalition Provisional Authority.

Continuing to believe and act as if we have these powers when, in practical terms, we do not is insulting to the Iraqi people, insulting to the government of Iraq, and harmful to U.S. interests. In no way should it form the basis for our future actions.

Summoning al-Maliki to Washington for an audience with President Bush is an example of actions predicated on this false assumption and is an example of exactly the kind of humiliation we need to avoid inflicting on Iraq if we desire solutions rather than ego gratification.

If anyone doubts the outrage felt by Iraqi politicians at the proposals made in the report, they are not paying attention to the international press. Leaders of most political parties in Iraq have publicly denounced the report and its proposals. The BBC website is one place to start reading about Iraqi reactions, particularly their Iraqi reader comments. The U.S. press is generally inadequate for understanding events overseas, as most here know.

What needs to be done at a minimum is to recast our efforts from the point of view that Iraq is a sovereign state and that, if they so desire, we will gladly consult closely with them on any issue of mutual interest.

Sam Thornton

A Devil's Advocate to my position might be, "If you people who are so adamant about immediate troop withdrawal are so adamant about immediate troop withdrawal, why don't you organize a multi-million person march on Washington, D.C. to demand it?"

Well, we have to work and take care of children and pay the oil bill and have money to buy groceries. If we don't show up at work we get fired. If we get fired we can't pay the bills. If we can't pay the bills we become homeless. If we are homeless we can't drive 1,000 miles to Washington, D.C. for a big protest.

More to the point, it is a surrender and abdication of our entire system and philosophy of governance that American people should be required to drive en masse to Washington, D.C. from all over the United States to form a "protest." That in itself is a strawman. That presumes that unless 1 million Americans suddenly appear at the Washington Mall in the winter to "protest" then ergo, Americans fully approve and give their seal to the continuing death and de-limbing of American soldiers and Iraqi people. It is a canard.

Thanks to technology, the desire and will of the American and Iraqi people on this subject is already well known and is quantitatively irrefutable. A substantial majority of American and Iraqi people want a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as soon as is practicable (ie. now).

There is no "silent majority" (ala Richard Nixon) in the United States or Iraq which can be cited in abstentia to justify any other course than immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. Unless you want to argue that the existing polling is in error by a 20 percent margin. The simple, scientific fact is that there exists no majority in either America or Iraq which supports the continued occupation of Iraq by U.S. troops.

Hard to tell if you're serious or not in this "advice" for Bush, or if your suggestions are presented as way of highlighting how absurd is the idea of Bush finding his way out of his own morass.

The origin of this disaster lies in the toxic combination of Bush's pathological and defective character and the totaltarian ideologues vicious and cunning enough to manipulate him, starting with Cheney.

The idea that Bush could EVER admit a mistake about Iraq--or anything else--is ludicrous.

I'm puzzled by the comments that this war was always unwinnable and that the invasion itself was the beginning of our loss. I personally opposed the war from the beginning, but I did so not because I believed it was unwinnable but because I, like most war opponents, feared Saddam's battlefield horrors to be visited upon our young people, and opposed US imperialism.

The degree to which the military campaign was a slam dunk impressed everybody and surprised most. It was Bush's failure to secure and rebuild Iraq that created the current morass. And it wouldn't have been hard to have a successful occupation, with anybody but Bush in charge. There were plenty of roadmaps and precedents, all of which Bush ignored. Most everybody in Iraq was sick of Saddam, exhausted by the sanctions, and even his closest associates dreaded the ascension of Uday and Qusay. His own generals were appalled by the fact that he deceived them about WMD, and they in turn deceived him about their battle-readiness and their performances in the field.

The whole Iraqi society was ready for new marching orders after Bush's lightning military victory--certainly the military and police forces were. But Bush and the neocons blew it basically because, in Iraq as in the U.S., they didn't have any real interest in stopping crime, providing jobs, and building hospitals, schools, highways, bridges, power plants, and public housing. Helping improve people's lives is not on their agenda or part of their ideology, in Iraq or in the U.S.

The discontent with Saddam in Iraq was far stronger than the discontent of the Serbians with Milosevic, and that 'unsolveable' conflict between religious and political enemies with thousand year-old enmities has been stabilized for a decade (and without a single American combat death, no less!).

Are more years of carnage in Iraq inevitable? Until Bush goes, yes. He's a war president, and is uninterested in peace. He's a destroyer, not a builder. But the path to peace is not unclear, and the resolution of the Bosnia-Croatia-Serbia-Kosovo civil war serves as a model.

=== The degree to which the military campaign was a slam dunk impressed everybody and surprised most. It was Bush's failure to secure and rebuild Iraq that created the current morass. ===

At least you left out the bogeyman of "the left" this time, but perhaps you could provide some quotes, links, etc? I certainly don't recall any prominant politician or pundit anywhere on the political spectrum (including some pacifists I know, who would presumably qualify as the "scary left") who didn't think that the US Army would roll over Iraq in short order. I will admit I expected it to take 2-3 months rather than 6 weeks, but I don't know anyone who thought the final outcome was in doubt. The concerns were always about what would come after.

And those concerns were very well-founded.

sPh

Instead of continuing to ask him *if* he's made mistakes, the press should start asking how it is that he, a mortal man, can *not* make mistakes as he often claims.

A Devil's Advocate to my position might be, "If you people who are so adamant about immediate troop withdrawal are so adamant about immediate troop withdrawal, why don't you organize a multi-million person march on Washington, D.C. to demand it?"

Um, I think the November 7 election results were sufficient.

J. McCutchen

Not good

There Goes Another Benchmark: Iraq divided over unity conference

The only reason, and this is more of a guess, is that Rummy's vision had less downside in terms of potential casualties...at least in El Presidente's acorn sized brain.

I think if we had gone in with overwhelming force there would have been a better chance we would had not lost control of the country like we did.  And overwhelming force at first would have made it much more difficult for the insurgency to grow as rapidly as it did.  We needed to hit the ground running right after we took control of Baghdad in setting up a new government.  We should have never disassembled the Baath Party either.  The old Baathists could have been instrumental in successfully setting up a political infrastructure but in the minds of El Presidente and the Junta the Baathists had to be purged from the government.  Then we were more interested in chasing our tails looking for non-existent WoMD and getting the oil flowing instead of securing the country and getting a new government in place...and we are paying the price now.

It has been a Bush Administration comedy of errors on the par of a Shakespearian tragedy that has resulted in the situation being completely unsalvagable.

First of all, I'm not invoking any "bogeymen", lefty ones or otherwise. Second, I think your memory is faulty. Of course nobody doubted that the most advanced military in the world would ultimately prevail over Saddam's forces. But, as the Bushies amped up the WMD rhetoric before the war, few people doubted that the troops would encounter some fiendish bio or chemical weaponry in the invasion. I recall a lot of anxious debate about whether Saddam would use his anthrax spores in desperation, or not use them in hopes of mercy from the victors. I certainly don't recall any public voices seriously suggesting that he didn't have at least some gases or spores to use on US troops.

Certainly there were concerns about what would come after, at least among thoughtful people, but few imagined that the Bushies would abdicate their post-war responsibilities to the degree they did. There was nothing inevitable about this disaster at all. 80% of the country (Kurds and Shiites) would be natural allies to any forces that ousted Hussein. The key to a peaceful post-war iraq was obviously co-opting the Sunni power structure in the police and the military, and cops and soldiers generally are predisposed to respond to authority. If the US had kept all the Iraqi cops and soldiers organized and on salary, the biggest issue in Iraq today would be who to put on their Olympic weightlifting team.

Only ideological idiots like the neocons, with pathological fools like Bush and Rumsfeld and Feith and Wolfie in charge, could have created this hideous mess. There was nothing inevitable about it at all.

"I stand fully behind my assessment that the war was lost before the first shot was fired (or bomb was dropped)."

Sorry, but that's just silly. You're saying NOBODY could have made better decisions about the occupation than Bush and Rummy and Bremer and Franks? What made the occupation of Iraq more difficult than the occupation of Japan, where an entire nation was conditioned to fear and loathe the US (as opposed to Iraq, where at least 80% of the people welcomed Saddam's ouster)? Your "assessment" is preposterous on the face of it.

While it may have been predictable that Bush et al. would fail in their post-war occupation, their incompetence doesn't mean that EVERYBODY would have failed. And in fact the degree of their failure is truly breathtaking. They did EVERYTHING wrong, and you're saying there were no right decisions available! Their relentless stupidity doesn't mean that no better decisions were available. You're excusing their failure by saying nothing better than failure was possible. It's a ridiculous position.

As best I can tell the Israelis have been voicing their concern about Iran since Khomeni returned. More than one Israeli has voiced the view that the only existential threat to Israel is Iran.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

There must be fifty ways to lose this loser. The problem is we are impotent and in the control of a nut. What has happened to the constitution?

Rumsfeld never cared . . . .

That's a bit unfair.

After all, there really wasn't a lot to be worried about. Chalabi was all set to head up the decapitated but functioning government, and we'd be out of there in six months or less. On those assumptions/expectations 125,000 troops was -- and was proven to be -- more than enough.

Baker also controlled the debate about Florida's vote in 2000.

Tom

I think we should keep in mind that "nation building" was not a matter of pre-war discussion -- that it was assumed that United States forces would be met by an up-and-running government which required replacement leadership, only.

You, Daniel, have been one of the strongest Shinseki supporters on the board for -- well, forever. And all based on his off-the-cuff back-of-the-envelope couple-three hundred thousand troops answer to a Senator's vaguely worded question.

Do you have a link to a transcript of any of Shinseki 's pre-war statements which disclose his reasoned argument that 1) Iraq would fall into a condition of post-war chaos such that we would need 2) "X" number of troops to maintain order and security?

No Tom...and I don't know how you could misread my post so badly...I think ANYBODY could have done a better job with this war other than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.  Hell I have never spent a minute in the military and I could have planned this war batter then the idiots who came up with this plan did.  All it would have taken was let the military draw-up the plans and not put pre-conditions on how they did it. 

And I don't think it is fair to pin the pre-war planning debacle on that hack Bremer, since I have no indications he was involved at that stage, but he is a hack nonetheless.  Also Franks had his hands tied.  He drew up a plan with the resources he was told he would have at his disposal...and as any "good soldier" would do he tried to make do with what he was given.

And you criticize me for excusin their failure somehow.  I am not excusing anything El Presidente and the Junta has done.  They are incompetent and should not be allowed to have their hands on the reins of power.  It was an ill-conceived war, whose plans were made by lunatics, who had no comprehension of the ramifications of their invasion on the country they invaded and refused to admit their mistakes and change course until it was far too late.