Well, at least now I know why they thought it would be a cakewalk

and didn't have any plans for occupation. They were bombing and thought the bombing would make resistance, both during the invasion and afterwards, impossible. They probably joked about "bombing them back to the Stone Age," but what they actually have done is bomb them into a futuristic, radioactive Heironymus Bosch hell with guerilla weapons and a mindset to protect their homeland at least as strong as Israel's will to exist.

I suppose Clinton's bombing of Iraq, sanctions, and the Oil for Food corruption also contributed to the idea of a cakewalk.

They wanted chaos. Their intention is permanent military occupation of Iraq, where permanent is basically the 12-year timeframe that Rumsfeld muttered about yesterday. This would keep us on the ground in control of mesopotamia throughout the peak oil crisis that is developing around the planet. Read the PNAC documents. Consider the deliberate encouragement of chaos after the blitzkreig - disbanding the army, no protection of any infrastructure sites except the oil ministry, 'they are just letting off a little steam', standing by while widespread looting completed the destruction started by our air war, etc. etc. We are building huge permanent bases. The US embassy and its surrounding Green Zone is essentially a fortress city-state within Iraq. This war had nothing to do with the Evil Saddam, with WMD, with Freemon&Moxy. It has everything to do with American Hegemony and the Oil Wars.

n/t

They probably thought they would have enough violence to get the oil and be in control and let the violence be a distractor for them while they get the oil. If you haven't you should listen to Bernie Ward's show from sometime last week. He had a guy on there who wrote the book "Losing Iraq". He was telling how everything going on now was planned. Why else did they give armor to people who are working for Halliburton but not our own military? The company that was made to do the armor had never made armor before. So why them? Why not a professional who can make it fastly? Other countries ordered armor from US companies and they got it very fast but our military didn't get it till twelve months later!! They've been planning this for YEARS so why not plan for better security? They planned this too. You know they had to. The US over twenty-two years have taken out thirty-two regime's. This time was the first with violence. Why? It was planned. Remember on the "election" day they had total control over everything? Why not now?

as in being in military control of the region. The mesopotamian oil fields of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are unique on this planet: they are the only large source of cheap oil left. We do not care if we can pump it out now, in fact later would be just fine. What we care about is that when it eventually does get pumped out it goes into our domestic energy supply infrastructure and not China's.

But I think things are going pretty much on plan. Both domestically and out at the edges of the empire.