I believe Bush and his people believed the conventional phase of the war would go on considerably longer than it did. They expected a more abject defeat of Saddam's supporters. Plan A would have been a relatively easy pacification and reconstruction.

This was a miscalculation and he is paying a price for that error. The casualties we are taking in the aftermath of the war would have otherwise been taken in the conventional phase. This would have been less costly from a political perspective but it would have resulted in far more civilian casualties.

Plan B, as it were, will eventually beat back the resistance and accomplish approximately what we wanted to do, if we are correct that the number of hard core fighters numbers around 5000. Under plan B we want to get the Iraq situation equal to the Afghanistan situation. That would be, highly defended bases away from the population center and manned by 10-15,000 troops to discourage coups.

I have gathered that you believe the resistance is ubiquitous in the Iraqi population. I am more convinced that it is the "deadenders". The probability is, many of the mainstream Iraqis will end up resenting us as many Germans and Japanese did/do but they are unlikely to fight if we mobilize the Iraqis to handle security over the next 10-12 months. Capturing or eliminating Saddam is far more essential than getting OBL

Time will tell and no, it will definitely not have been worth it if we fail to establish a quasi-secular democratic government at least on a par with the Afghan government.