When, from a tactical standpoint, did the U.S. start stumbling in Iraq?
I can’t stress how much I thought it was such a dangerous strategic mistake to even go to war. One person I know who was working at the Pentagon, about three months before the start of the war, said that this war was going to lead to a tsunami of democracy in the Middle East… It was clear to me that even before the war began if that was the fundamental premise, then from that starting point you had a whole host of mistakes. You had the mistake of disbanding the Iraqi army, you had the mistake of getting rid of all the government jobs, and then I think the one pivotal moment was when the looting happened. Very early on, it sent the clear signal to the Iraqi people that we don’t care about your security or prosperity. And it turned a whole host of people against us. And you never get another chance to make a first impression. Does Abu Ghraib fall into that category of giving the impression the Iraqi people that it was all about us and not about them? Well, that came later in 2004. And
