No, I see your point, I just disagree.
The insurgency has little to nothing do do with the number of Baathists caught or not caught at the beginning of the war. It has to do with the underlying current of anti-american feelings prevalent in the Middle East. Fallujah for example is not in the far North of Iraq against the border of Turkey, It's only about 50 miles East of Bagdad.
You don't need massive numbers of troops to win the war, well placed bombs do that. Where we need the troop numbers is during the occupation after the fact. Yes this is 20/20 hindsight on my part, but I don't manage troops for a living, but troop size WAS a debated issue at the time of invasion and the call to go in with less than the number of troops required was a flawed call.
The idea of using overwhelming force was at one time referred to as the "Powell Doctrine" and to now try to make Powell out to be the faulty member is bogus. Had Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld actually followed his doctrine, the problems would, I believe, be lessened although still present.
You can't have it both ways - massive troops and not massive troops.
Had the 4th come down from Turkey they would have proceeded all the way to Baghdad to meet up with the 3rd, crushing the resistence on the way. The Marines finally squashed Fallajah on their own to accent the point. Had that been done earlier, by the 4th, the "insurgents" would have had no base and peace would have emerged much quicker.
To repeat, Kuwait could not and was not willing to handle the number of troops that would equal the 3rd and 4th combined so Turkey was necessary. As in all wars, the good plan hit a snag. Second guessing is now the order of the day,
By the way, the so called Powell doctrine got its name because in the 1st Gulf War, Powell, as CoS, would not OK an attack until he had massive forces in place, many more than needed. He was much like Monty Montgomery in WWII.
I just noticed that you are new to Free Republic. Welcome to FReeperhood.