USAToday: Our view on Bush's legacy: Denial, arrogance led U.S. into Iraq

If there's a lesson from Bob Woodward's latest book, State of Denial, it's that the calamity that has unfolded over the past three years in Iraq was born of a ruinous mix of arrogance and naivet from President Bush and his key deputies. Convinced that the war would be a walkover, they simply closed their ears to the many voices who warned of the impending dangers.

(On Iraq: “There was no viable ‘exit strategy,’” the father’s book says. / 2002 photo of the Bushes by Win McNamee, Reuters)

Although others have detailed the Bush administration's incompetence and head-in-the-sand attitude as the Iraqi insurgency took root, State of Denial provides fresh details about the myriad ways administration officials, particularly Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, bungled the Iraq war:

Unrealistic plans. Rumsfeld's Pentagon accomplished the initial military campaign but botched the aftermath. It rejected recommendations that it would take about 450,000 troops to secure Iraq and sent one-third that number. It ignored a State Department blueprint that could have tamped down the looting, including of arms depots by future insurgents. Woodward relates disturbing anecdotes about administration pettiness on a level with high school. Rumsfeld cut others out of Iraq decisions and planning; for a time, he would not return the phone calls of then-National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice until ordered to do so.

Refusing to shift course. Expert advice that could have made a difference was ignored. Woodward cites the first Iraq administrator, Jay Garner, telling Rumsfeld that three terrible — but reversible — mistakes had been made: banning Baath Party members from any new government; disbanding the Iraqi army; and rebuffing an interim leadership that could have put an Iraqi face on the nation's new government. None of those decisions was reversed, leaving thousands of well-armed fighters with little option other than rebellion. Woodward also recounts that former secretary of State Henry Kissinger privately criticized Bush for rarely even considering alternative courses of action.

Misleading the public. Woodward's book is packed with details about the gulf between the information the administration had and the picture it presented in public. In May 2005, for example, Vice President Cheney told Larry King on CNN that the insurgency was in "the last throes" when Bush knew it was, in fact, worsening.

more:http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/10/post.html

I just bought that book in audible format, and downloaded it onto my HD. Next, it'll go into my cell-phone. I can't wait to listen to it!

pnorman

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Iraq suits their agenda quite well by being in complete disarray

Cannon Fodder be dammed, - they could care less

Now we are focusing on the sectarian violence that Saddam had held in check for decades, unleashed by "Bush's War" as some call it

But it's the PNACers War, Bush is just their idiot "poodle" - a perfect patsy with a powerful father.

Junior will take the fall, and the PNACers remain in the shadows.

Everything is going according to plan

count on it

Could anything be dumber than assuming an inhuman infallibility in one's opponent?

But thank you for your concern.