What most people fail to see is that McCain’s position on the war all along was carefully constructed to be undermining of our efforts. He would complain that because we were in Iraq we didn’t have enough troops to confront any other conflicts that might come up while at the same time saying that we needed to send more troops to Iraq. This was during the 2004 campaign season while he was kissing up to Kerry who wanted to surrender. The Democrats were all quoting McCain in their surrender speeches.
The only reason the Surge is working is because the Iraqi forces are there and working. Those Iraqi forces exist because Rummy and Bush ignored the Dincons like McCain’s attempt to Americanize the war and paid the price to get those Iraqi forces fielded an ready.
Rummy and Bush’s mistake was underestimating the amount of time the Iraqis would need. We expected them to be ready faster then they were.