You have come across to me as someone who has a disagreement with Bush with many criticisms on the details of the war, but not opposed to the overall objectives. I think Robert is being overly harsh. I'd put you both in the camp of reasonable liberals.

As far as the issue at hand goes, Rumsfield did listen to his generals according to Time. He initially wanted a far smaller force of only around 50,000. He challenged his generals to think outside tradition and use new technology more effectively. They made a good effort and convinced him that we still needed a large force, but agreed to a smaller one than GW2. Turkey screwed up our plans and timetable. The Bush team thought we could use a smaller force but had planned for a larger one to allow a big margin for error. Bush also asked generals about their concerns before launching the attack. I think we would have had all the force we needed if Turkey hadn't proven to be an unreliable ally.

Regards,
Mark