Brent,

Amazing. Is there any evidence of slurring in Burns's speech during this interview? After all, he could have been drunk.               :-)   ns

did i mention that russert's college age son is in a sweetheart deal with with the democrat rajan cajun (sp)?  dosn't that save russert a lot of tuition money?  why would they pick russert's son receive this windfall?  what talent does he have?  could it be his talent is who is father is?

well at least russert doesn't work for free!

Wow. I had to do a cartoon-style double take when I saw that headline and read it again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating! Will wonders never cease?

In a perfect world this President of ours wouldn't have had to choose between the future of international law and the posture of the United Nations if Saddam succeeded in getting off the international hook of joining the civilized world and post Saddam's control techniques absence.   That even one of our own commercial jets was easily catagorized a WMD after 9/11 is just possibly too logical a label for MSM to acknowledge. 

If deciding Saddam Hussein had to go was the general agreement towards just maintaining international law foundation then: where have all the Democrats gone?  Where have all the Democrats gone?

As for what led to the inaccurate assumption that Iraqi would “stand up” for democracy, Burns contended that journalists made the same error: “I think that the policy makers in Washington, and to be on honest with you the journalists also, to speak for myself, completely miscalculated the impact of 30 years of violent, brutal repression on the Iraqi people and their willingness, in President Bush's phrase, ' to stand up' for themselves, to take authority, to take risks.”

Burns' comment here reminds me of the former Soviet Union after the communist regime fell.  One might have thought the Russians would take their chance to be free and run with it.  But even a casual glance at the news out of Russia shows their democratic period has been far from a smashing success.  With Putin in power, they seem to be sliding back to their old ways.  Why should we expect everything in Iraq to snap into place in a year or two?  One of our big problems is that we vastly underestimate how hard the task in Iraq is.  But that's not to say we shouldn't keep at it, or that our military is inadequate.

For all of the harping on what 'should' have been done and why didn't the US follow other post-war concepts. the main problem is that Iraq is unlike most post-war regions in its inherent diversity.  That is a primary concern for anyone trying to do analysis for the region and not recognizing the problems that the regimes in power cause by their use of tribalism, religion, and ethnicity to play off parts of society against each other puts a huge blind-spot in front of one's face.  Further, those that look at post-war conditions have tended to limit themselves to 20th century analysis and not do a further view of other post-war situations and try to derive the successes and failures of each.  It is disturbing that this has not been done as the only similar case to Iraq is one of long-term Western failure, although in a smaller region.

The actual strategic outlook of the post-war conditions are driven by the size of the US Armed Forces first, last and always.  Congress, by not fully backing the conflict and scoping out what *it* thought the needs would , did not properly assess what needed to be put forward in the way of manpower or industrial capacity.  Trying to blame the CinC for those shortfalls belies the fact that it is Congress that sets the Nation to War and it must properly understand just what it is committing the Nation to do.  It did not.  Saying that the President 'painted a rosey picture' does not absolve Congress of its duty to insure the Nation has properly put forward its commitment to War as only Congress can do that.  Congress is very much used to giving the President more than is asked for in other areas of the Federal Budget, and it can very well put forth more than is necessary for warfare.  The CinC may not utilize all of those resources, but they are there in case of need.  Congress abdicated its responsibilities in the checks and balances of the system.

That said the forces on the ground *dealt* with the various problems, shortfalls and small force necessities so that a sustainable force for a multi-year commitment could be obtained.  They purposely avoided strategies that sound wonderful, but have proven to be of little long-term utility in other conflicts around the globe throughout history.  They sound good because they are fast, but they can become disasters if a long and thorough commitment is not made to them.  By working in another direction, the forces on the ground have done something no other counter-insurgency force has tried to do:  remove the rural areas as refuges for the insurgency.  By quieting the quietest and remote areas *first* and working hard to break up the supply lines of the insurgency and its lines of communication, the insurgents found themselves more and more limited in movement to a few cities.  Violence became concentrated and telegenic while the Nation of Iraq had breathing space to get its act together.

That is something known as 'strategy'.

It enables new tactical capabilities as Iraqis learn to stand up without the overhead of a despotic regime.  Their society is badly broken and giving them space to learn how to fix it is paramount.  The US can do as it has always done:  lend the hand of a friend who has removed the boot of tyranny from your face so that you can learn to stand and walk on your own.  It may take the Iraqis a bit to figure this stuff out as they have no experience with it.

The US took 7 long years to fight the Revolution to a conclusion and then *failed* for 5 years thereafter and multiple insurgencies nearly brought the entire Confederation down.  It took the US between 5 and 12 years to stand up a decent NCO Corps after going to an all-volunteer force and we were experienced on how to do that because of the war colleges made in 1901-15.

Why we expect *better* from the Iraqis than we do from ourselves is beyond me.