One thing this article has right is that McNamara was a piece of crap for a Sec. of Defense.
The current plan of keeping a lid on the 3 different cultures of Iraq appears to come more from Bush than Rumsfeld. Bush wanted to bring democracy to the region. I think H*** will freeze over before our version of that happens.
If Bush had made the decision to split Iraq into 3 pieces, we'd already been out of there, or at least would be over most of the continuing terrorist work in the Sunni triangle. A faster strategy would have been to pick a new Western-leaning dictator. This has always worked in the past, giving us a 15 year breathing room before a guy like Sadaam outgrew his leash.
If we'd partitioned we'd been able to play one off against the other more easily, yet still keep them separated.
The problem with Bush's Tito option of keeping it all together like the mish-mash of old Yugoslavia is that there has to be a strong dictator or a strong will to fight the terrorists. Right now both do not exist. But if we stay the course, and spend $$$, I imagine a government will kick start. It's just a matter of time and money. The partition approach avoids those problems with the loss of a central control of their biggest resource: oil. It appears that a central control of oil is now producing less than before the war.
Rumsfeld did and is now doing a great job, given the constraints placed upon him politically.
Bush's desire to bring democracy to the region unfortunately outruns the 2 year election cycle that it has to fit in. The Republicans will pay at the ballot box for this delay.
Hoppy
Wars are more easily fought afterwards. I am not a military expert. I have not served in the military. I have read about a lot of major mistakes we made in WWII, not to mention Korea.
Alexander the Great was right all of the time, but he was also absolute in his leadership. Eventually even his own men got tired of his leadership and refused to conquer India.
I am amazed that we did so well in Iraq with so little help from our so-called allies and so much opposition in the area. The overall effect has been to grant freedom to two countries where people never voted before.
I am also astonished that we did so well given Clintons' (plural possessive) hatred of the military and their absolute desire to bankrupt and humiliate our forces whenever possible. Give them credit for overcoming eight years of neglect and poor funding from the Democrats and the GOP.
Defense is in our constitution. Wiping every dripping nose in the world is not.