|
I believe the leap is made because the man invaded the country (rather than dealing with far greater and more iminent threats) for false reasons using selective intelligence that helped make his case... told the people that you'd be greeted as liberators, not occupiers... that he invaded with far fewer troops than needed which resulted in chaos which lead to insurgents being able to organize and fight back. That fighting back is what is leading to these civilian deaths.
No one expects that the US could come in and control every facet of Iraq and keep insurgency at zero. That's obviously unrealistic, however, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst has estimated over 100,000 people involved in the insurgency (before you jump on that, that's including those aiding insurgents with financial assistance, logistical, housing, etc.).
It was estimated there were approximately 5000 originally during the fall of Baghdad, I believe. Had there been enough troops (which Shinseki called for) there they would have been in a much better position to squash that insurgency and instead of all of this fighting, could have been rebuilding Iraq and helping them recover from the Saddam years.
Then when Baghdad falls, instead of protecting piles and piles of explosives at the largest collection weapons facility in Iraq they secured oil fields and ministries. Now explosives are in the hands of those fighting back and it's a huge mess. It shouldn't have been a matter of "do we protect highly explosive material, or do we protect the oil fields". Having more troops would have enabled the US to do both.
Perhaps Bush isn't a blood thirsty murderer and a mole for the oil kingpins, but he sure hasn't done a very good job of proving himself otherwise.
|