Having Mr. Melton as my tactics instructor the past year -

His main point is that none of the Iraq governance/occupation debacle should have been a mystery. We planned for 3 years prior to 1945 how we would govern Germany, and it paid off, with similar planning for Japan. If we had started with our 1945 governance regs/books we would have been better off.

He notes that before a country can be effectively occupied its will must be broken, and that our decisive/CoG effort against the Iraqi military failed to break the will of the population prior to occupation.

Thus he advocates an attritional campaign prior to any occupation operation. He does not advocate attrition in all things, but cites "maneuver warfare" as appropriate for limited and raiding war, not occupation war because it does not break the will of the populace to carry the fight.

A simplified version of his book.