Telling you so
Good Morning again! It's a bright, cold Tuesday - perfect weather for "I told you so." Today's headline:
IRAQ REBUILDING BADLY HOBBLED, US REPORT FINDS
PROBLEMS FROM THE START
Understaffing, Infighting and Lack of Expertise Are Cited in Draft
by JAMES GLANZ
The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs, according to a preliminary draft.
Except, I didn't tell you so.
2 May 2003: Hurrah! The war in Iraq is over! Saddam Hussein hasn't been accounted for, and neither have his weapons of mass destruction, but military opposition to American troops has ceased. As our intervention in Afghanistan ought to have taught all thinking people, the American mission would come down to this: the war would be over when resistance to our invasion melted away. Installing a US-friendly person as the nominal head of local affairs (in the case of Afghanistan, 'local' means 'Kabul and environs,' no more), we would hale our troops home to a hero's welcome. The Administration could rest assured that no one except nigglers like me would fault it for having altogether failed to accomplish its trumpeted prewar objectives. Is it so hard to remember six-week-old headlines? (Link)
I truly had no idea what a disaster our Iraqi misadventure would be. I knew that it wouldn't succeed, but my conception of its failure was pretty limited.
Of course, it's not over yet.
"Problems from the start" will keep me chuckling all day. Oh! Almost forgot. The headline is from The New York Times.
