You actually asked several questions, each of which has yet to be answered in full, and none of which can be answered until 2057.
So from what you are saying the liberals that say it is all our fault won't actually be making this statement until 2057? This is what I meant when I said liberals read between lines and explore every angle until they find the most advantageous politically correct answer. The accusation was made in 2001 but the proof of the statement won’t be around until 2057 maybe.
Why? Because we won't know what the government knew until their records are released. Until then no one, including the right, can make a final statement on whether the war was conducted in the best way based on the knowledge of the time.
If what you say is true then it will take longer than that. Keep in mind the Kennedy murder. It will not start the declassification process until Senator Kennedy dies and then add 50 years before it is declassified. If special circumstances is claimed then we have to wait until the war on terror is over plus 20 years or until the President, Vice-President, and the leadership of Congress all have to die before the declassification process can start.
But I don't think you need that level of evidence to say Iraq's been a shambles and a disaster from the very start that was crippled by some extremely poor decisions on the part of the US government. There was no excuse for the mission's name (Infinite Justice?
If you are a liberal then you have just avoided the questions I asked and tried to deflect and obfuscate to another subject of which you have not answers either. It is true that Bremer did screw up, by disbanding the Army but the only guide he has on the subject was WWII in Germany and Japan. He did not take into account that Iran, Syria, and Al Qaeda were going to continue to fight the war that was over for the Iraqis.
the failure to protect essential services in the cities,
What essential services? They were all mostly gone from the first war and never rebuilt. The money in the oil for food program was not used to do anything except enrich Saddam's pockets and rebuild his war machine. The services that we rebuilt were being knocked out by the terrorist to keep the Iraqi people angry and miserable to get them to continue to fight a war they wanted over.
Abu Ghraib, etc. Each of these should have been prevented. The first two by consulting a regional expert, the third by speaking to the Brits, the fourth by speaking to a PR campaigner and the last by keeping a closer eye on prisons, which even in western countries require constant oversight to prevent riots, mistreatment and torture.
The first two, none of the so called experts realized what was happening with Iran, and Al Qaeda until it was too late because the media kept everyone misdirected on the so called riots and unrest that was typical when an oppressed nation is freed. Remember how the museum was looted and priceless treasures were stolen? Only to find out that none of that happened. Oops the Media and the experts that pointed to the stuff carried away as priceless relics were bad copies because all the priceless stuff was safely locked away years before the invasion. And while manpower was wasted securing worthless junk for the cameras whole armories were looted because the outside experts said this was more important. The local commanders were derelict in their duties because no one reported to them what was happening and when they did find out they arrested and charged the people responsible. The media was kind enough to tell the world what happened for no reason. It did nothing to stop the tragedy but it did give the enemy plenty of propaganda. The media did not bother to tell anyone until the damage was done that the people responsible were already in custody and facing trial months before the story broke. Good work don’t you think? The government can’t control the media which has been doing its job of reporting the news as they see it. Their job is to get viewers and readers not so much the truth but makes good reading. For months we debated world wide about torture that did not happen. While our enemies used it to inflame their people and recruit. A pity no one holds the press responsible for their actions even though they are part of the government.
That the US did none of these showed how woefully underprepared the war effort was.
You left out the fact that we have been unprepared for this type of war for over a decade. We tried to increase troop strength but liberals said we did not need more troops because the Soviet Union was no longer a threat. The liberals convinced the rest of America that we could spend the money wasted on troops on social programs. The big fuss Congress kicked up because the SecDef wanted to cancel weapons programs that Congressmen wanted and speed up programs that would be used to fight the type of war we are in now. For months before 9/11 the press and Congress fought the revamping of the military and how the Generals were not listened to. Mean old Rummy did not listen to the “experts”, then when we were attacked we had a military still geared to fighting a conventional war instead of the type of war we are fighting now. It looks like the experts had us going in the wrong direction when the attack hit.
For something that had been planned for many years its execution was abysmal.
If what you say is true you would be correct but if you look back at the war you will see that we did not have any serious plans for the war in Iraq. The battle in Afghanistan was the main focus and when Intelligence showed we were going to have a problem with Iraq we started building plans. That was just about a year before we invaded. Contrary to popular belief there were no plans for the invasion of Iraq and they had to be made on the fly. The diplomatic efforts involved in the invasion were set and then turkey backed out keeping a third of our forces from being put in place. This meant we had to re-plan the invasion with weeks to go.
The US had learnt a lot from its previous wars, and it was a great failure that soft power was completely overshadowed by the demands of a high-tech and fast military invasion.
Actually if you study warfare you would have noticed that the battle plan was taken from the Nazi Blitzkrieg. I don’t know what you mean by soft power. The strategy was the best we had in the short time we had to put the plan together and get it going. The urgency of need to get Al Qaeda stopped and contained was the driving force. The other reason for the invasion was to show the world that if you support terrorist openly you will be attacked. It was a partial success until the press broadcasted every flaw. In every major war the press at least made a pretense of supporting the country. This time they started with disaster and did not stop until they got it. Remember that Iran provided intelligence and a small amount of support until they saw the public reaction in America and went back on thier word.
Of course that's just an answer to this question of yours: But given the situation as it unfolds how could we have done anything other than what we did the way we did it?
I still fail to see how it was our fault. How we could have done it smarter does make sence in hindsight. oh well.
You asked others. I don't have the time to answer them, but I promise you that you will get a solid and well researched 'liberal' position from reading one of the liberal agenda-setters. Being proactive is good for you.
No I just waned to read from liberals how it was our fault and how we could have faught it better. I still don't see how it was our fault but you did shine some light on doing it better if we had the benifit of hindsight.