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I don't think the problem was so much a lack of raw data (most of this information actually WAS reported in open source publications; just ignored), as much as a lack of any ability to analyze and draw conclusions from that data. This was true within the US Department of State, the CPA, the PCO, etc. Reporters and academia didn't have anyone better. Wikileaks would have been good if there were secret information not being published, but basically everything important was published openly with a 1-3 month lag time.

The only part of US society with any experience at all going into this in 2003 was the military, due to KFOR/Kosovo, and even that was exceedingly limited. Arguably, if the US had more experience in 2003, it might have been less willing to go into Iraq at all.

There were people who were just 100% anti-war in general, or anti Bush, or whatever, but because they were always screaming the same thing, they could be easily ignored -- kind of like calling every single death in a war murder, it degrades the term murder and makes actual murder much cheaper as a result.

Michael Yon (www.michaelyon-online.com) was probably the first to say things were actually going badly from 2003-2005, and then to document the surge and "awakening" which won Iraq.

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Iraq was 'won' ? That's news to me.

It absolutely went from utter failure to just sort of failure with the surge and awakening.

No one really won (well, the Kurds, and maybe Iran), but sometimes making something really bad suck less is a victory. Given that the people who architected the turnaround were not the people who started it, I'd say they did a pretty good job with what they were given.

Going from utter failure to mere failure is not victory, it is disaster mitigation. What would a victory in Iraq even look like? Iran emerged as a regional power. Saudi Arabia continues to finance terrorism with petrodollars. Millions of Arabs hate the U.S. even more than they did 10 years ago. How could this happen? Where was Congress in early 2003? Where were the checks and balances?

Why is that any sane person who dares to criticize the U.S. foreign policy is labeled as "traitor", when the true traitors were the congressmen who failed to check the executive branch, the intelligence agencies' employees who could but did not blow the whistle, and overall the American people who engaged in hysteria and madness and abstained from rational thought after the 9/11 attacks.

If anyone won the war in Iraq, it was Iran. The surge only "worked" because Iran allowed it to work. In case the U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear facilities, you can count on losing Iraq once again.

Yon takes good photos, and he provides some interesting stories at the tactical level. But he's kind of completely clueless about the grand plan. He's nothing more than a "useful idiot", cheering for a campaign from which he gains very little.