Tom; I don’t rely on any single information source, online, print, blog or broadcast.

I listen, read and look at many sources, then average out what I learn. I also have other places to find out what’s really happening on the ground in-country.

I began to wonder about a lot of the hyperbole and questionable information commonly available within a few months of the beginning of this action. What I was seeing didn’t equate to what many reliable contacts I had were telling me.

It isn’t so much that the decision was made to commit troops that I’ve come to disagree with. It is the utter lack of proper planning, and the dismal amount of accurate intelligence that really smokes my bacon. High Level choices made were based on personal views and more than a smattering of arrogance. In hindsight, the entire action should have been delayed, or not begun at all. I think a lot of it was someone talking around their foot, and having backed themselves in a corner, seeing no other way out but to go ahead.

The US Military is virtually an irresistible force in ground combat, and their Air Superiority is so overwhelming that any opposing force simply has no air combat ability at all. It isn’t the conquest that is hard, it’s the aftermath.

And the planning, which takes intelligence with at least some accuracy and a firm grasp of the culture the troops will have to deal with. And yes, we could debate the extreme difficulties of obtaining reasonable Intel within a country so ruthlessly controlled such as Iraq. That is a topic for another thread.

I still firmly believe the Hussein had to go. The probabilities of a alliance between his regime and a number of terrorist groups were uncomfortably high. “Common Enemies make Strange Bedfellows.” With his historical fondness, and use of WMD, and his continued desire to acquire even more powerful weapons of that type the prospect was very unnerving.

There is one (very) slightly comforting fact, it has gathered a huge number of the members of Command and Control for Hardcore Terrorists in a single region. Makes them a lot easier to identify and eliminate.

But overall, the entire prosecution of this ‘war’ has been filled with serious errors in judgement and planning. After the last forty years of this type of conflict one would presume the Pentagon and DOD would have a clue as to tactics, deployment, governance and civil control.

I know it will get worse, much worse, before it gets any better. I knew going in this was going to be a long drawn out bloody affair.

But we won the initial battle, now we’re losing the “Hearts and Minds” war from extremely poor planning and preparation.

And that sir, is the critical phase. If we lose that battle, all the blood, sweat, tears, destruction and misery that combat brings on every person near it, Military or Civilian will be for naught.