SUCCESSFUL AT INCOMPETENCE by Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=pcrBush's invasion of Iraq is one of the greatest strategic blunders in history. The Bush administration assumed that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be a "cakewalk," because the indigenous population would welcome and support Americans as liberators.
The reality is that all available U.S. troops are tied down by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents who have the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is so short of military manpower that it has been forced to call up the reserves and the National Guard, to keep troops deployed who have served their time in uniform and, now, to call up men in their 50s who have not been in uniform for 20 years.
Bush's invasion has turned not only Iraqis but all of the Middle East against the United States. Where there were no terrorists and no support for terrorists, there are now tens of thousands of terrorists. America's puppet regimes in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are endangered by the anti-Americanism that is engulfing the Middle East.
Like Hitler at Stalingrad, Bush cannot recognize the danger. Unable to occupy Iraq, Bush plans to expand the war to Iran and Syria. The identical Bush officials who lied about Iraq having nuclear weapons or weapons programs now lie about Iran having nuclear weapons or weapons programs.
Immune to evidence, the Bush administration is delusional and capable of horrendous miscalculation. The flowers with which the U.S. Department of Defense said our troops would be greeted in Iraq turned out to be bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs.