Iraq was supposed to have WMDs. But then it didn't. Iraq was supposed to be a threat to its neighbors. Except it had no military worth anything. Saddam was suppedly best friends with Osama Bin Laden, turns out they hated each other. Our troops were supposed to be welcomed with flowers. They were welcomed with bullets, RPGs, and IEDs. Our casualties were supposed to be minimal, but they're
not.
The war was supposed to pay for itself, and all reconstruction efforts, by Iraqi oil revenues. $200 billion later the war tally is still rising. The Pentagon fired generals who argued for more troops during the invasion. Now, the need for more troops is painfully obvious. The Pentagon claimed our troops were well equipped. Turns out they lack life-saving armor. Rumfsfeld arguied that "physics" prevented them from armoring vehicles more quickly. Turns out armor factories were working under capacity.
Well, Bush and company did get one thing right -- they bet that the American people would reward their misadvetnures with a second term, regardless of the extent of their incompetence. War is apparently electoral gold.
As for the soldiers stuck fighting the actual war, well, as Rummy said, they're stuck with the Army they've got. Herbert runs down the consequences of such incompetence:
Just a few days earlier, the chief of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, told The Dallas Morning News that recruiting was in a "precipitous decline" that, if not reversed, could lead to renewed discussions about reinstatement of the draft.
The Bush administration, which has asked so much of the armed forces, has established a pattern of dealing in bad faith with its men and women in uniform. The callousness of its treatment of the troops was, of course, never more clear than in Donald Rumsfeld's high-handed response to a soldier's question about the shortages of battle armor in Iraq.
As the war in Iraq goes more and more poorly, the misery index of the men and women serving there gets higher and higher. More than 1,300 have been killed. Many thousands are coming home with agonizing wounds. Scott Shane of The Times reported last week that according to veterans' advocates and military doctors, the already hard-pressed system of health care for veterans "is facing a potential deluge of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious mental health problems brought on by the stress and carnage of war."
Through the end of September, nearly 900 troops had been evacuated from Iraq by the Army for psychiatric reasons, included attempts or threatened attempts at suicide. Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, an assistant secretary of defense for health affairs from 1994 to 1997, said, "I have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going to be the medical story of this war."
When the war in Afghanistan as well as Iraq is considered, some experts believe that the number of American troops needing mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.
It's Bush war. Those are Bush's dead. Bush's crippled. Bush's widows, and Bush's fatherless and motherless children.
And when mentally disturbed Iraq War vets start blowing ship up at home, McVeigh-style, they will also be Bush's legacy.