OK. Both your military references were rather late in the process, after the aggression, after the quagmire. Both references were by folks standing knee-deep in mud, saying that it's a bit damp. After the fact, if you will. And the DOD tends to propagate Rumsfeld's worldview, which seems to reflect reality only coincidentally, sort of a twice-a-day thing.

My point is that prior to the aggression the "line" GWB & Co. took was that the Iraqis would greet the US forces with glee. A provisional government would sign contracts with Halliburton, would request the US military to stay indefinitely, there would be elections, and everyone would live happily ever after.

The US would be hailed not as a conqueror but a liberator, and would treat the Iraqis not as a conquered nation but with respect as liberated allies.

That was the (Republican) Party line.

Hasn't happened, and a lot of folks said so. The ROW could tell, and did tell, that Iraq is an artificial nation of three large groups who didn't all get along well. The ROW knew that the Iraqis had endured 12 years of bombing and sanctions, and were no more well-disposed to the people who starved and bombed them than you or I would have been.

And it took no genius to understand that an army and/or police force would not be particularly bonded to an invading aggressor force.

Which seemed to surprise GWB & Co. Even though they saw it after it happened.

Arf