10 Years Later

I wasn't blogging yet 10 years ago, I started this blog in May of 2004.  But I was reading blogs.  I remember that many pointed out that the ultimate winner of the war would be Iran.  I spent some time today going over some of my early posts.  One of the sources of intelligence used by the Bush/Cheney cabal was one Ahmed Chalabi.  In May of 2004 we found out that Chalabi was working for the Iranians.  Here is my post from May, 21, 2004:
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Talk about being had, it appears that Cheney and the Defense Department were being taken in and paying Iranian spies as in Chalabi and his slimy group.
Agency: Chalabi group was front for Iran

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.

In other words we attacked one country part of the Axis of Evil, Iraq, for another, Iran.
Will the incompetence ever end.
Josh Marshall also has some thoughts on this
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Indeed, we fought a war against Iran's arch enemy - we lost and Iran won.

Cheney promised us that the US would be seen as liberators.  It took a little over a year to see proof that this was just another lie.  This post from June 19, 2004:
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In a recent poll conducted by the US CPA in Iraq 55 percent of the Iraqi's polled said they would feel safer when the Americans left. With headlines like this you can see why:
US Strikes 'Al Qaeda Safe House' in Iraq, 22 Dead

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces launched an air strike on Saturday on what they said was a safe house linked to elusive al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Iraqi city of Falluja, killing 22 people in a "precision strike."

"An American plane hit this house and three others were damaged. Only body parts are left," a witness said, as rescuers dug through the rubble of the shattered house for survivors.

"They brought us 22 corpses, children, women and youth," Ahmed Hassan, a cemetery worker, said after the blast.

I'm sorry, but even if it was an al Quida safe house this is no way to make the Iraqi citizens feel more secure or feel good about the American presence. No matter how you felt about the war it can't be hard to concede that the effort has been thourghly botched.

Update

Juan Cole has some thoughts on this. He thinks it might be considered a war crime since many of the dead were women and children.
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Iraq was a colossal mistake.  Even those who think it might have been a good idea admit that there was gross incompetence on the part of the Bush administration.