Unfortunately, there are spinmeisters working from all directions.

My own views have been that we should not have gone to war without having convinced the UN to join us. But once it began, the only responsible viewpoint was to hope for an expeditious and decisive victory with a minimum of casualties for all sides. It appears that we may have achieved this, but until an Iraqi civilian government is established and in firm control of the country, it is too early to judge the success of "regime change." All we've done to date is topple the rule of a petty and impotent two-bit dictator whose bark was far worse than his bite.

We may never have a full accounting of Iraqi civilian and military casualties, but its safe to say its substantially less than what I thought it might be. The credit for this can be shared: One, due to remarkable competence of U.S. and U.K. military forces; and, Two, due to the incredible incompetence of the Iraqi military and government.