Yeah, I think you’re right. I was a big Rummy fan, still am but that was a big mistake on his part. He went in on the cheap rather then put in overwhelming force and going about it in that fashion.
Of course, hind sight is 20-20 and I hate it when the libs play Monday Morning QB so now I’m guilty of it too.
I made the same comments back in 2003 when everyone was saying that all we had to do was train more Iraqis. They were right about that, just wrong about how long it would take. We would have been better off leaving the Baathist infrastructure in place and just replacing its head with a more cooperative snake.
I am retired military. When I first came in, one of the strengths of the US miltiary was its size and scale. When I left, everyone was parroting the line about how light & lean was so much better. In some cases (like Special Ops) this may be true, but we have stretched ourselves too thin and given away many of our historical advantages.