Did gloss over but only because I though the history was pretty well known. Garner probably had the right idea, it wasn't politically acceptable to the powers at the time. Bremer was indeed an unmitigated disaster (predictably, he said, smugly... ). My belief is that until ealy May, we planned on leaving rapidly, that got changed and Garner was replaced by Bremer and I'm not sure just what drove the change in plan -- whatever it was, it also drove the change with those two.

I agree with you that the system does not sort out the issue of who's in charge very well. Theoretically, the Prez with the advice of the NSC determines strategy and the Geographic CinC is reponsible for the implementation and the Operational aspects. However, as we know, strategy, operational level and tactics all intertwined and Congress intrudes as does the JCS so the results are messy. IMO, that is the price we pay for the government and life style that we have and, while not ecstatic about the resultant conflicts and confusion, I can understand and accept them.

As for this working out in our favor; too early by far to tell IMO. While there have been a lot of foul ups at many levels, military and civilian, it'll take another fifteen or twenty years to sort out. Having lived in Iran and traveled the ME -- admittedly BC -- I will be surprised if the Iranians end up with that much influence in Iraq. The two nations hate each other and have for a long, long time. One of the gravest insults one can accord and Irani is to call him or her an Arab.

Cheney IMO was a lousy SecDef and I was still at work then. I cringed when Bush said he was the VP pick. I think Cheny as VP was the big Republican donor's price for support to Bush and Dick is just bad news; his clones he brought with him, particularly Wolfotwits are equally bad. Still they're there -- and the Nation has survived worse...

Agree with you on the difficulty of running a CI effort given the US penchant for speed and sound bites. That is a significant problem. My preferred solution is rather crass. We go in, kill and destroy which we do quite well and outsource the cleanup.

The failure of the US Army to train for occupation, nation building and counterinsurgency for the 1975-2004 period is nothing short of criminal malfeasance IMO -- and I'll note that Powell, Wes Clark and Franks are among those responsible for that failure -- and Sanchez was definitely the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, gotta give the Army credit. In Viet Nam it took 'em seven years to figure out they were fighting the wrong war; in Iraq, it only took eighteen months -- that is progress...