...and how it was dismayingly (and suspiciously) open-ended.
If the invasion had gone as smoothly as they had imagined it would (i.e., had their string of unlikely assumptions actually panned out), they were all set to roll onto the next domino to "democratize" (Syria would likely have been first).
However, their own lack of real planning for Iraq and their too-small force levels* intruded on their little Risk-board delusions.
*About the "too-small force level" comment: among the things that leaked out while they were trying to sell the invasion was the low-level of commitment in troops they were calling for. Remember Colin Powell's line about "half a million men"? That was the numbers generally thought to be needed for an invasion and its aftermath. However, a commitment of that size would have made it impossible to sell the war as a quick & easy "cakewalk", and would have undercut their ability to cajole congress members into going along just on their word. So they pushed the "Shock & Awe" part and downplayed or ignored the main need for a force that size: keeping order in the aftermath. We all know how that went, when there wasn't enough manpower to even try to crackdown on the open looting, and how things devolved after that. Has Powell said anything about this abandonment of the "Powell Doctrine" of overwhelming force to smother opposition?
= new reply since forum marked as read
