Gullibility is gullibility but I believe that thinking they would intimidate the Arab world, knowing that they would have to observe restraint is harder to believe than the intelligent (perhaps I should have said relatively intelligent) and secular society. I don't think we believed that Saddam could have kept the fundamentalists in check if they weren't at least as secular as the Turks.

Bowser is correct in his observations regarding the Germans and the US preserving the police and infrastructure intact in WWII. What we did in Iraq was incredibly stupid and it is the major reason the situation got out of control.

We were all gullible to some extent. I knew from day one that we had to be out in a year and I really thought we could pull it off. I never thought WMD was a justification for invasion and I would have been at least mildly surprised if they had found them.

I have said before that in hindsight we should have just bought Saddam and turned Iraq into a client state.