Did we send too many troops to Iraq and scare off the flower-throwers?

This is just too sad to be true. Further entrenching themselves in fantasy, it seems there are those in the Pentagon who believe the collapse of civil society and the resulting power vacuum was preventable if we only engaged indigeneous forces in Iraq. Were these the people who were supposed to greet us with flowers?

From the Army Times:

From think-tank analysts to angry retired generals to Capitol Hill lawmakers, it has become nearly universal conventional wisdom that the U.S. invasion force that conquered Iraq in 2003 lacked the manpower to secure the country after Saddam’s fall.
But the Pentagon’s civilian policymakers may have learned a much different lesson. According to a defense official, the problem with Operation Iraqi Freedom was not too few U.S. troops, but too many.

Fortunately Thomas X. Hammes, Michele Flournoy, and Stephen Biddle all disagree with that assesment coming from Rumsfeldians.

Posted in War