Yes, We should have expected an insurgency like you say. We now know that we should have been prepared to stop the looting, and we shouldn't have aborted plans for a continuous roll in of forces, and we shouldn't have totally scraped plans for post invasion security, and we should have anticipated al-Qaeda to bet the farm on stirring the Sunnies and had counter insurgency operations prepared for them. Now we know.
But NO, we should not have left "mid level" Baathists to undermine reform before there was a reliable method of vetting them, reliable Shiites in power places, leaving friends of the old regime to first take the good spots, wiggling into intractable positions to corrupt and intimidate weak malleable new officials at their most formative stage who might actually be trying to modernize and reform systems. No, that's a shortcut with predicable results, we shot for something MUCH more ambitions, and fresh start at government with all the good and bad that goes with it and have paid now rather than later.
We did anticipate this beforehand but the powers that be decided to do it their way.
But NO, we should not have left "mid level" Baathists to undermine reform before there was a reliable method of vetting them, reliable Shiites in power places, leaving friends of the old regime to first take the good spots, wiggling into intractable positions to corrupt and intimidate weak malleable new officials at their most formative stage who might actually be trying to modernize and reform systems. No, that's a shortcut with predicable results, we shot for something MUCH more ambitions, and fresh start at government with all the good and bad that goes with it and have paid now rather than later.
This sounds good.