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No, Rummy didn't. The media and their retired "experts" made up this idea that we could waltz in there and take over a country in a few days. Now the press is upset that the real world is not living up to their nintendo view of things. Media expected a sanitized war where Iraqi people embrace us as liberators and the Republican Guards throw their hands up and surrender. Since it is not quite turning out that way it must be the military's fault, right? (sarcasm)

"No, Rummy didn't. The media and their retired "experts" made up this idea that we could waltz in there and take over a country in a few days. Now the press is upset that the real world is not living up to their nintendo view of things. Media expected a sanitized war where Iraqi people embrace us as liberators and the Republican Guards throw their hands up and surrender. Since it is not quite turning out that way it must be the military's fault, right?

Disagree.

Nobody EVER actually said that this would be a cakewalk and there would be no casualties and that the war would be over in a week.

The media and the democrats and the international socialists (up until the attack itself!) were saying that WE would be involved in a catastrophe and Saddamn would kill thousands of our troops, and that WE would kill thousands of "innocent" Iraq children and hundreds of thousands of civilians and that WE would need thousands of body of bags in this "quagmire."

The administration definitely never said anything about it being easy or short.

Now that we are at war, the MEDIA are PRETENDING that the ADMINISTRATION had said it would be short and sweet and simple and over in a matter of hours.

See the difference?

I've been thinking about the "short war" hype and how it all got started. To me a lot of the high expections for a quick victory were due to our first strike. After that we waited a day. And during that day delay there were rumors that Saddam may have been taken out, that the leadership was in complete disarray, that we were secretly negotiating with various Iraqi divisions about them surrendering. Then when the lull was over and we started to get down to business, we didn't go full tilt. It was almost like, "okay, we know you're close to breaking, so he's a little something to help convince you that giving up is really your best option". Then we heard more reports of Saddam maybe having been killed and that there was no coordination coming out of Baghdad. We heard analogies like 'once you cut off the head the rest would soon follow'. But it didn't follow. They didn't give up. Not just yet at least. So then we kept hearing about Shock & Awe and about how much more improved our weapons were now as compared to GW1. Therefore once S&A began a lot of ppl felt that that would do the trick. That the Iraqis would finally stop fighting for a doomed regime and in a war that they couldn't possibly win.

So in a way i can understand the impatience after getting the impression early on that we had disabled the leadership and that we were negotiating surrenders with at least one or two Iraqi divisions. Can't blame our guys for trying to push hard for (and thinking that they had a good chance to get) a quick end to the war but at the same time the psychological ploys we used to try to convince the Iraqis that a short war was in their best interest is now coming back to hurt us a bit as the war keeps going on. But oh well. We gave the Iraq military their chance. And if the they want a fight to the death, all we can do is help them to that end. No matter how long that takes.