[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Bush is not quoted there

But, I do think that the former struggle in Iraq suggested that the Iraqi forces would lay down their arms and run like they did before. And, in many ways they were correct - the Iraqi forces were relatively quickly defeated The problem came from the insurgency factions, which I believe were mostly unrelated to the official Iraq army - though I could be wrong.

In any event, the soldiers were in fact met as liberators. But, then Rumsfeld's lack of any coherent plan to win the peace allowed the insurgency factions to rise. I do think, and I base this on the people I know who have been there, that the vast majority of Iraqi people are happy SH is gone and like the American forces in general, but would also like for the place to be peaceful enough for them to be gone. I think it is important to remember that not all or even the majority or a significant minority of Iraqis are attacking our soldiers. Rather, our soldiers and innocent Iraqis are being targeted by the insurgents (on edit) but that is a different battle than the original invasion which lead to the fall of the government.

On edit - this goes along with why I loathe the Bush Administration. They seemingly always start off well and then cannot close the deal. Just like in Katrina - the declaring of the disaster area ahead of time was a good thing and then four days of no troops. Similarly, a rahter impressive invasion and taking control of Iraq and then BAM - no plans in place at all other than saying it was going to take a long time. Incompetent idiots.

my understanding is that the insurgency is affiliated with Saddam. its in their best interest to keep this whole mess roiling.