Additional troops could have provided the capability to protect oil fields and pipelines, provided security at key ministries and utilities and other facilities (like ammo dumps!), and for all those places that were looted by criminals and then wasted by insurgents. It also would have provided some control over the cross-border traffic that allowed Baathists to escape and outside troublemakers to infiltrate. These are routine precautions that are taken whenever martial law is declared domestically, it certainly would have made sense when implementing regime change in an occupied country with a history of hostility against us and surrounded by our enemies.

Neither can the need for these preparations be dismissed as having been unanticipated. They were specifically requested by the Pentagon and deliberately refused for political reasons. The expectation was that it would be a case of the old "in-and-out" because we would be welcomed as liberators and the situation would suddenly resolve itself as soon as we showed up. It was also realized that the longer we stayed the more likely it would be that an insurgency might develop. Another factor was the enormous amount of resources squandered desperately searching for non-existent WMDs.

It's easy to speculate on what drove the Rumsfeld plan. The Iraqi emigres who advised the Bush team were only interested in going home backed by American arms. They were not about to bring up anything that might give their patrons second thoughts. Also,the belief was that the American people would not tolerate a long, high-casualty, low-intensity conflict, so no plans were made to be ready for one. So it would all be done on the cheap, produce few casualties, be over in a hurry, and all our political and strategic goals would materialize without any additional effort on our part. After all, no one ever complains about a war you win.

When forced into a war at short notice against a capable adversary, tactical and strategic errors are inevitable. But there is no excuse for blunders of this magnitude when we had the capability to overwhelm our enemy and the time to plan our actions to suit our own timetable. Even for those who still support the reasons for this fiasco it must be obvious that the way it was carried out betrays colossal incompetence and a refusal to change tactics when they might imply your critics are right.

The only myths I see were the ones that deluded the Bush White House.