Molly Ivins, in the DFW Star-Telegram:

That the Pentagon FUBAR'ed -- fouled up beyond all recognition -- the occupation is painfully clear, and the latest reports of contracts gone awry, inefficiency and profiteering don't point to improvement. At the very least, we can conclude that bringing democracy at the point of a missile is a lot trickier than the neocons believed it would be.

I thought one of the most helpful evaluations was a piece in the March 29 issue of The Nation by Jonathan Schell, who has the advantage of having studied weapons proliferation issues for many years. Schell draws back from the "is not/is so" pingpong match to inspect the war and occupation in a much larger context. He's not happy, either.

The worst part of the hangover is probably our loss of credibility around the world. We attacked Iraq, which didn't have WMD, while doing nothing about Abdul Khan, the Pakistani who spread nukes all over the planet.

Then there's the case of Richard Clarke, the top adviser on counter-terrorism to Bill Clinton and Bush. I thought that the most chilling moment in his stunning interview on 60 Minutes was what he said took place immediately after 9-11:

"Well, Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq. And we all said, 'But no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan.' And Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan, and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.'"

Clarke said it was as though after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt had wanted to attack Mexico.

Another Clarke insight: "I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they [came] back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years before."

[hyperlinks added - thanks to Bowser for his link to Slate, which provided the 60 Minutes transcript, and to Mary Anne for pointing me to the Ivins piece]