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It is obvious, by the events themselves, that the postwar planning was deficient.

Oh really? And where did you get this information? From the people who said the assault on Baghdad was a quagmire or from the geniuses who kept insisting there weren't enough troops?

Both Lugar and Nunn kept yapping about the UN and more resolutions. Their time has passed, it's a new world and the UN is simply an organazation whose time has passed. Libya as head of the anti-terror task force and Paraguay vetoing US foreing policy may be OK with Lugar and Nunn but they aren't with me or the Bush administration.

100 days after the cease of major assault and they're still yapping. Morons should take a peak at Japan and Germany post WW2.

One other thing that needs to be understood is that, with Germany and Japan, they were defeated and destroyed as nations, and were crying "Uncle" at the end of the war. It was easy to waltz in and occupy when the locals weren't opposing us. This is different. It's as if there was a whole bunch of Japans in East Asia, and we only defeated one of them. The others send in material aid and men, and keep the attack going inside Japan in order to try to drive the Americans out.

We are at war with the entire Arab nation, at least that part of it that is fundamentalist muslim, and until we have had regime change in Iran and Syria, and cowed the islamists in Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, there will be trouble in Iraq. What we should be working on is a plan to send our troops to the barracks to hunt down bad guys, and use other nations to police the place. When they can't get at us, they've got no way to bring the war to us, and we can hunt them down cell by cell. But does Lugar understand any of that? NO, he just knows he'll get the press to give him some respect if he badmouths the administration.

And where did you get this information?

Observation. Clearly the adminstration miscalculated to some extent or it would have prepared the general public for the ongoing dripping of American deaths. The media make a major deal of that. It is not surprising that they do. That alone demonstrates that the planning was deficient.

Do I think the administration could have anticipated everything that has happened? Of course not. Still, with hindsight, Jay Garner would likely have not been first man in, either. Criticism does not mean general disapproval, you know.