"Top people [were] saying they should plan for a strong resistance."
My son served in Gulf War I with an elite unit and was there from August 1990 to April 1991. His unit entered Iraq 2 days before the "official" ground war start. Shortly before we invaded in 2003 I asked him how many troops he thought we should have. He said 450,000. Looks like he and the other pessimists were right. He had continued in the reserve, and then went back into active service. He is now in Afghanistan.
I recently made a FR post composed of some of his recent emails formatted as an "interview". It is titled "Front Line Views on Iraq/Afghanistan War Situation" 3/12/06, if you want to check it out. A lot of what he says concerns Afghanistan, not Iraq.
Thanks I'll find it and read it. When does he come home?