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Good post, and actually this was some good concise testimony. Taking the 4 lessons in turn,

First, it is essential that we are clear about, and carefully align, our political and military objectives.

This one is rather mysterious to me. What is Perle saying? In what sense were our military objectives in Iraq not aligned with our political objectives? (Not rhetorical question -- I am honestly wondering what Perle has in mind here.)

This brings me to my second lesson: In aligning our political and military strategy, we should make sure we have the support of a significant segment of the local population.

Makes sense to me.

The third lesson is, by now, generally accepted: our intelligence is sometimes, dangerously inadequate.

Obviously. Incidentally, this was news to me: "There is reason to believe that we were sucked into an ill conceived initial attack aimed at Saddam himself by double agents planted by the regime."

What I worry about is that the "intelligence was wrong" meme often gets interpreted in a simplistic one-sided way, as if the main task is to always reduce our estimates of what materials are possessed by foreign regimes, always lower our estimates of foreign threats. That would be a grave mistake.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, a fourth lesson: we must do everything possible to avoid becoming an occupying power. ... The image on Iraqi television of an American pro consul informing the Iraqi people of the rules we made for them and the arrangement of their lives for which we assumed responsibility, contributed significantly to the difficulties we have had in Iraq.

I can't argue w/this. I wish I understood the reason for waiting so long to hold an election, myself.

"What is Perle saying? In what sense were our military objectives in Iraq not aligned with our political objectives?"

Again, we didn't have good enough advance intelligence on the ground in Iraq because we didn't know who was the real political opposition and who we should align ourselves with. We didn't know if Sistani and others were with us or against us.

So our political objectives became unclear as to whom are allies were within Iraq, in order to more quickly turn over the country to the friendly opposition of Saddam, who might be oriented to having a democratic gov't.