[Vigilanteman]

. . . his sadness that the American people feel the federal government is "dysfunctional."

Maybe they feel that way because it is, f'rinstance:

1. We've spent billions trying to rebuild a country which seems to have a strong preference to killing our soldiers and each other.
   
2. We've seen the American forces win victory after victory in the battlefield, only to be ordered to throw those advantages away because we can't kill civilians or pursue the bad guys in mosques.
   
3. We've got a giant bureaucracy who can find and deport some 85 year old geezer because he was a teenage SS guard, but we can neither find nor deport armies of gangbangers and drug smugglers because they have their rights to prey upon us all.
   
4. We have a useless bureaucracy which can find and confiscate knitting needles and hand cream from grannies in airports, but will turn a blind eye to terrorist imams doing a dry run for the next 9-11.
   

[corlorde]

You've nailed it.

[Wolfie]

Right on target. Here's hoping you don't get flamed too much.

[FreedomPoster]

And it's not just us. Your list reminded me of some of the items in:

How the West Was Lost

which covers this sort of dysfunctionality from a European perspective.

[ClaireSolt]

After sleeping on it overnight, I think that one theme of the report is that the bureaucracy has stiffed Iraq and refused to do its part leaving it up to the military alone.
I knew that the AID people had refused to go, but this suggests that the arabists at state, the intel community, and justice have also. That's why we have seen soldiers painting schools.