Good article.
It continues to annoy me to no end that so many conservatives and liberals take Rumsfeld and others as highly flawed Iraq operators.
The war in Iraq was at every level an astounding success.
Congressional critics such as Levin and Biden were way off the mark on dire predictions. Suggesting that at least 10,000 US troops would certainly die in the first six months of the invasion in Bagdad alone. The fact that five years later we are not near half that number for the entire country speaks volumes to the permissiveness that is given to critics of this war.
Where do they ever have to be vaguely correct in order to retain credibilty?
The answer seems to be never. So long as critics keep stepping up with the failure meme the public— including far too many conservatives are willing to concede ‘it has not gone well’ sigh.
That is total bull.
Iraq voted on and adopted a Constitution that the EU still cannot pass among their member states. The three elections in Iraq of 2005 were staffed by Iraqi security forces that Biden promised could not be created by our military— wrong again.
Critics have been wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong but still found so credible by the media.
Several months ago, just before the "surge" period started to show fruit, I got into a heated argument with a liberal friend of mine. Heated more perhaps by the several drinks we'd had by then. But he was giving the usual line about what a "disaster" the Iraq war was.
I challenged him to consider the speed and size of the operation, the number of casualties on ~both~ sides, military and civilian... and name for me just ONE campaign in the known history of warfare that has gone better.
I'm still waiting for the answer.