I disagree with two of your three “disasters”.
D-Day was remarkably cheap. Battling for a foothold along so many miles of well defended coastline against a well-experienced enemy easily could have been far more costly.
The Battle of the Bulge, too, was cheap. The casualties sustained the Allies, almost exclusively US in this case, bought the complete emasculation and demoralization of the only strong elements that remained of the German war machine, and the subsequent total collapse of that machine.
Dunkirk was definitely a disaster with no redeeming qualities other to be able to say at least some soldiers escaped with their lives, instead of all captured and killed, which certainly could have occurred.
Whatever, though, this VDH article is definitely one of the best articles I’ve read in analysis of both a book, and as a side effect, the BASH* itself, that I’ve yet seen.
(* BASH = Battle Against Saddam Hussein, part of the WOT)
AFPJus, my point was if Iraq is a disaster then so were D-day, the Bulge and the amazing Dunkirk evacuation (348,000 British, French and Belgian Soldiers evacuated using 900 civilian and military ships). My word, the US has managed to change the future of Iraq, eliminate tens of thousands of terrorists, take out the Libyan nuclear weapons program, slow down the Iranian nuclear program and yet all are calling Iraq a disaster.