Exactly right. Damned if you do or damned if you don't. We were trying to get Iraqis employed, stand up/repair critical infrastructure, and prop up a new government. None of this is done on the cheap and when you compound this with the fact that we wanted it right away... (your point below).
These types of hearing/investigations are going to go on for years and it all boils down to the fact that we may have overestimated the tacit will and basic know how of the Iraqi people to self govern and take control of their own security.
That is the greatest understatement I have read this year.
I have come to believe that the only forms of government that work in Arab countries are tribal savagery or totalitarian dictatorship, take your pick. They seem to be culturally unfit for and unworthy of liberty, democracy, or free market capitalism. We should cut off all immigration from those countries, and let them fester and rot in bloodthirsty ignorance until the end of days.
-ccm
Bremer's book is very interesting. The oft cited missing billions were actually just not up to accounting standards. No one has ever claimed they were mishandled. Then on Fox tonight they showed Waxman investigating Blackwater, allegedly to support a laa3wsuit for his trial lawyer contributors.