In retrospect, I made three basic miscalculations in favoring the war to depose Saddam three years ago. I thought Saddam had stockpiles of WMDs the discovery of which would bolster support for the war after liberation; I believed we would have enough troops to keep the peace; and I thought the massive reconstruction funds would buy popular support for the occupation. Wrong on all three counts. Here’s a story from the NYT today on the reconstruction of Najaf. Najaf is remarkably free from major violence, and yet the reconstruction is still a shambles, hobbled by poor oversight, corruption, delays, translation problems and general incompetence. Anyone who knows contractors of any kind knows some of this is part of the process. But you just have to read this story to see how widespread this mess is. Again: issue one for the Bush administration is government competence. They don’t seem to have much. And in the end, with even the best policy in the world, competence matters. Iraq is particularly apposite here, because if there was ever a case in which we knew we had to get it right, this was it. And yet, they seem never at a loss for excuses for failure. Discouraging doesn’t quite capture the essence of this. Maddening is more like it.
BLAIR AND THE BEEB: He gets it.
The Dish 