"The thought behind the "more boots on the ground" theory is that more strategic, humanitarian and cultural sites could have been secured to avoid the theft (especially of armaments, but of other things too), random vandalism and strategic vandalism that occurred, not to mention short-circuiting some of the personal violence by guerillas, so that the occupation would have started with more of what was left in a usable, secure condition. As a police presence discourages criminal activity, the lack of a presence of authority encourages it."

I could say a lot about this, but I'll skip, to the important part- winning the war. The America people might not care *that* much about Iraq. In other other how much blood and treasue are the citizen of America willing sacrifice to see a free Iraq. Donald thinks 3000 US soliders is way too much, at what point: 6000, 12,000 or some larger number do more American start agreeing with Donald? It doesn't help to say that Americans *should* care more about Iraq, you have to deal with political realities. Roughly equal to lost soldier and maybe considered more important is the cost of the war. Consider this, if you replace a private contractor to replace a soldier [cook or driver] and you pay that contractor 200,000 per year, this is far cheaper than using a US soldier. Our soldiers are expensive- they are good soldiers but they cost a lot. So our cost of this war is about 250 billion. Many say this is too much. How many more would agree if instead it was 500, 750, or trillion dollar in total. The terrorists can't win in terms combat, but could win in sense that American could regard other things as more important to spend money on.
So the way you win wars with the America public, is by using the least miltary as possible. Now a quick war with large forces can be as cheap as a significantly smaller force over a longer time period. For anyone who knows anything about this and is arguing for larger forces this *must* be what they are thinking about. BUT and this is a BIG BUT war is all about logistics. You have ask when you wanted these larger forces in the field. You *have* to consider the Turkey situation- had we got a few more votes in their parliament, we would have had a different war. Was that mistake or was that a cost worth taking? Hindsight makes it easy- if you are moron. Also there is the aspect of America forces advancing very quickly into Iraq. Now, you want this, but you don't always get what you want. So you are planning [because this stuff needs planning in order to be possible] to quickly take Baghdag. What happens if you are wildly successful- it goes much better than you dared to hope. The Iraqi army was completely and utterly crushed- the whole army was shattered. If some of Iraqi army had held together, then it would taken longer to get to Baghdag. The US forces would have had time [got bogged down], to get reinforcement and counter attack. There was no counter attack. There was no significant resistance.
Ok, so at this point miltary is blamed for looting. And it's crazy. Baghdag wasn't taken by huge army that surrounded it- it was "taken" by the tip of the spear- it was "taken" by recon scouts.

Anyways, I seem to have gotten drawn into talking a lot about this. The point is if you wanted Iraq to have constitution and elected govt, this takes time. Lots of time plus huge US miltary presence equals lots of money & more US soldiers dying; resulting in US public unwilling to continue to support this effort, and this does NOT quicken Iraqi political process, and thereby results in it being more likely of losing the war.