How would you grade the Bush administration's planning for the occupation of Iraq?

There is an interesting set of comments over at Kevin Drum's Political Animal which started out as a discussion of the subject of Counterinsurgency. That's 205 comments, many by very intelligent people. Here is one by mroberts I really enjoyed. [Reprinted with permission.] The discussion had drifted to the Bush administration planning for the invasion of Iraq:

This reminds me of Cheney on the talk-show circuit predicting that we would be welcomed as liberators. I thought he was blowing the typical, eye-rolling sunshine, but that the military would be responsible in its planning and at least be a little prepared for things to go differently.

Put it this way, this administration's pre-war planning would get an F as a student assignment at West Point. The assignment: prepare a plan for war in Iraq to take out Saddam and put, um, something in his place.

The Bushies turn in a paper saying, Shock and Awe bombing campaign, followed by hunt for Saddam and dancing in the streets as the Iraqis welcome our troops.

The officer (I assume) grading this paper would roll his eyes, "ok, you start with the bombing, good. But then you expect the enemy to do what you want? Have you taken any notes at all this year? War Planning 101 - the enemy will not do what you want. Your grade: F." Duh.

Bushies: But we're their friends. We're here to help the Iraqis!

Officer: Friends don't bomb friends, especially Shock and Awe style. We may be there to help 2/3 of the population, but the 1/3 we are fighting have all the money, power and guns. They will definitely see us as the Enemy.

This doesn't even cover going in and failing to secure the old and well-known nuclear site to keep "dirty" materials away from possible terrorists and failing to secure large ammo dumps so that any insurgency doesn't get a cheap (free) and huge supply of weaponry. If Clinton did this the Republicans, including military officers, would be calling him a traitor. The incompetence with which this endeavor has been planned and executed is so complete and so mind-boggling that I would have thought it outright impossible for us to do something so badly.

From the fake urgency with which the war was marketed right before mid-term elections, to being unable to make charges (WMDs, nukes, ties to 9/11 and all of terrorism) stick to Saddam (I mean, c'mon, if you can't make charges stick to Saddam, you are REALLY incompetent), to the complete farce of pretending to go seriously to the U.N. and putting inspectors in Iraq - just to scrap it all in a fit of impatience because it didn't end up being a highway to invading Iraq, to the taking his eye off the ball and taking forces away from fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (way, way, way too little has been made of this), to not even considering securing the aforementioned nuclear site and ammo dumps, to "Mission Accomplished" in a flight suit, to handing over Iraq's economy and rebuilding to inexperienced Heritage Foundation flunkies who wanted to commit Shock and Awe to Iraq's economy (that will show them what good friends we are - fire them and sell off their companies to foreign interests -- just add water, stir, and voila, more insurgents!!), to "stay the course" when there is no discernable course, to quietly convincing Iraqis that we have no intention of ever leaving by building permanent bases, to treating our "friends" to dictator-style assume-they-are-guilty-and-torture-them-at-will-in-Saddam's-old-torture-prison, to supporting this activity by searching out legal justifications for it and then blaming the torture on a few bad eggs among the grunts (when the few bad eggs are in the White House), to consistently claiming the moral high ground and acting utterly without morals whenever they are inconvenient, to refusing to see the insurgency for what it is and fighting it effectively... how can ANYBODY support this administration?

They said it would be cheaper than the Big Dig (I call it Biggus Diggus :-) in Boston - I mean, really, who went for that one? A war in the middle east cheaper than a highway project? After all is said and, well, it's unfinished, but "incompetence" doesn't even begin to describe how everything this administration does ends up rat-fucked in more ways than even thought possible.

I will now go bang my head against a wall for 50 hours straight.

Thud, thud, thud, thud...