What Lack Of Conviction Leads To - Ralph Peters Discusses The Iraq War

Peters: The mistakes are legion. To cite only a few: Not enough troops early on; the unwillingness to impose security in the streets after Baghdad’s fall (the administration feared the media would carp about any crackdown); trusting partisan émigrés who had narrow, selfish agendas; turning Iraq into a looting orgy for U.S. contractors; the refusal to listen to military advice in wartime; forbidding the military to plan for an occupation; failing to field a unified chain of command; the hubris of sending young, inept party hacks to Baghdad for brief, ticket-punch stints to reconstruct a complex country; the lack of seriousness about defeating the insurgency early on; the lack of resolve to kill Muqtada al-Sadr when he began his campaign of assassinating our allies; disbanding the Iraqi military and government, thus putting idle young males out of work and on the streets; allowing private security contractors to alienate the Iraqi population; and the general lack of courage and will in the administration after Baghdad fell—the dog caught the fire truck and didn’t know what to do with it. President Bush did a noble thing, but did it inexcusably badly.

... read the entire interview. You may speak of hindsight being 20/20, but it would be an untruth in this case. All these items were concerns early on and rejected out of hand by the Bush Administration! The interview also covers the De-Christianization of Europe.