I agree with you the what-if is maddening. From what I gather from speaking with OIF veterans and Iraqis, and the general sense from different reports is that there was indeed a ‘golden hour’ immediately following the regime change and before the insurgency took off where different decisions might have made a radical difference in the course of events.

For example:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/24/the_iraq_red_team?page=0,1

Michael Gordon, NY Times, reports that a faction of officers and diplomats pushed for a rudimentary COIN strategy years before the COIN “Surge”, but were rejected in favor of giving more time to the civilian-led Coalition Provisional Authority. In other words, counterinsurgency was the emergency back-up plan for Iraq when it should have been the starting strategy for the post-war occupation.

That said, I’m more forgiving of Paul Bremer than you are for three reasons.

One, extreme failure and steep learning curves are a normal part of our military history. Failing before the COIN “Surge” set right the mission falls in line with past wars where we lost before we won. Despite everything, we had turned the corner in Iraq by 2011. What’s rarer in our military is giving away our victories after learning to win, as Obama did with Iraq.

Two, I heard Bremer speak in person in 2003, a few months before he took over the CPA. He knew his stuff and anticipated the challenges in Iraq. However, from what I gather from friends who served in OIF I, the CPA had a plan and generated policies in the Green Zone that looked good on paper but weren’t actionable on the ground, at least at that point of the mission.

On the specific issue of “Chalabi intended to keep vetted military, police and bureaucrats in place for stability”, we might all be over-estimating the state of the human-resources infrastructure in Iraq at the time.

See Dale Franks at QandO discuss the issue in 2005:
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=2951

Bremer also intended to bring back government employees after vetting. It’s hard to tell how much of his failure to execute is due to the CPA process, how much was due to lack of qualified Iraqi personnel, and how much was due to the insurgency exploiting a gap.

You know, maybe a reason Saddam believed he needed WMD was that Iraq’s Army had repeatedly proven to be unreliable vs the Israelis, Iran, and us. Besides invading Kuwait, did the Iraq military actually ever win?

Three, the military didn’t want to take the lead in the post-war occupation. The Army that entered Iraq in 2003 was still the Army I grew up in, and our philosophy was that we were war-fighters. Which means the post-war was someone else’s job. We might assist in limited, defined roles in the post-war, but we wouldn’t run the show.

As Gordon reported, there might have been a rudimentary, proto-COIN strategy option that was set aside in favor of the CPA in the beginning. But I’m also not surprised that the CPA option had to be used up first in order for the military-led COIN option to be tried. The needs of the mission in Iraq had to become urgent enough to overcome the Powell Doctrine mindset. Even today, many Army leaders are opposed to counterinsurgency becoming more than an ad hoc doctrine that’s best avoided altogether.

I wish Bush had done more, too, for the simple reason that more needed to be done in the activist propaganda contest. However, where I disagree with you is that the responsibility for doing more in terms of PR/propaganda belonged to the President.

This goes to the common failure by the people of the Right in subscribing to fantasies of magical messianic savior Republicans in elected office, when actually, the extra-duty tasks you call for them to perform rightfully belong to the people acting from an activist social movement. That’s how the Left does it. Obama is credited for much that actually has been carried through by the Left activist social movement rather than by Obama’s own faculties.

Bush’s speeches were better and more substantive than he’s credited. As much as a President reasonably can do, Bush did what he said he would do as a war-time President. He said what needed to be said.

Do I wish Bush had fought the PR/propaganda fight better? Sure. But going mud wrestling with activist propaganda isn’t the President’s job. That’s the people’s job. Obama has the Left activist movement to do that kind of work. Bush then and the Right now needs such an activist movement, too.

Humans are truly looking for scapegoats these centuries.

And what did Americans do to deserve a leader that fought back against lies? Most of America shut the hell up when they were charged with racism.

A leader of a nation is what that nation deserves. So it was for 2001 and so it was for 2009.

Good point, and I felt the same way when Condi Rice wouldn’t punch back after being dis-invited to speak at that graduation.

OTOH, Mitt Romney stubbornly refuses to go away. I wish he would go away, and I even agree with him on many things.

I’m not sure Bush would be listened to no matter what he said, and his presence would instead be another source of irritation.

For that’s what it is, when you put your “Christian humility” and gentlemanlike conduct ahead of the welfare of your nation and the defense of her policies and her armed forces as the Commander in Chief and President.

Bush should have fought back against all the lies. It wasn’t about HIM, after all: they were attacking him as the representative of US. In refusing to fight the Left, he didn’t defend us.

And it really chaps my hide that he STILL refuses to speak out in America’s defense.

I suspect the Zero Admin. pays more attention to that than they do to the Congress. Gotta keep those low-info voters happy.

The State Department is reaching out to Ahmed Chalabi. Powell, Armitage and crew torpedoed the idea of Chalabi forming the interim Iraqi government after Hussein fell. Chalabi intended to keep vetted military, police and bureaucrats in place for stability. Instead we put Bremer in to run a U.S. interim Dictatorship, and chaos followed.

Bush finally dumped Brmer and brought in Crocker, Petraeus and a surge of troops to put it right.

Then, Obama happened.

The same report reveals that Obama is now reaching out to the Sunni tribal leaders who Crocker, Petraeus and crew co-opted in 2007/2008; and Obama abandoned in 2011.

If this were a comic strip it would be named Bizzaro. Oh, that is taken already.