When their mission involves nothing more than "nation-building," "making Iraq safe for democracy," "winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people," and serving as targets for IEDs in a simmering civil war, that's exactly what they are.
The mission was to set up a central government that was capable of ruling the country and not hostile to the Uniuted States AND, not incidentally, to provide us with a base larger than Kuwait. The problem was, imho, opinion, a state department that has no clue and which has had a veto in affairs since the beginning.