[neverdem]

Why beat around him? You're screwed. Pulling out is no real option. I guess after 10 years of occupation from now Iraq might look like you only need one major military base down there. Your military certainly knew that, and they probably told the politicians. But someone really wanted an adventure. This one just won't pay off for everyone.

??? Would you care to elaborate?

[Schweinhund]

'Democratizing' such a heterogenous land as Iraq (in terms of race, religion...) - where big portions of the population are experienced rebels and where only an authoritarian government has supressed independence claims of various factions with brutal violence up to then - will take its time, even if you put aside the fact that islamist nutjobs are now rather supporting Iraq than Afghanistan.

And military intelligence won't look at such facts and then tell the politicians: "Sure, you'll be home by christmas!" But in this conflict, I think you can say US politicians used military intelligence rather as a public disinformation tool instead of using their information for conflict planning.

To be precise, something like a democratisation process would NORMALLY take about 5 - 10 years in my eyes, until you can be sure that democracy is stable enough so you can leave the country.

[Schweinhund]

this is a very good article on this topic:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html

excerpts:

If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath. What is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in recent decades

[...]

The Bush administration's use of intelligence on Iraq did not just blur this distinction; it turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq.

-Paul R. Pillar