Greeted as liberators

MANIFESTO

No wonder the Bushies like Maliki. He's every bit as delusional as they are.

[T]he Iraqi operation [in Basra] was not what the United States expected. Instead of methodically building up their combat power and gradually stepping up operations against renegade militias, Mr. Maliki’s forces lunged into the city, attacking before all of the Iraqi reinforcements had even arrived. By the following Tuesday, a major fight was on.

"The sense we had was that this would be a long-term effort: increased pressure gradually squeezing the Special Groups," [Iraq Ambassador Ryan C.] Crocker said in an interview, using the American term for Iranian-backed militias. "That is not what kind of emerged."

"Nothing was in place from our side," he added. "It all had to be put together."

The Bush administration has portrayed the Iraqi offensive in Basra as a "defining moment" — a compelling demonstration that an Iraqi government that has long been criticized for inaction has both the will and means to take on renegade militias ...

But interviews with a wide range of American and military officials ... suggest that Mr. Maliki overestimated his military’s abilities and underestimated the scale of the resistance. The Iraqi prime minister also displayed an impulsive leadership style that did not give his forces or that of his most powerful allies, the American and British military, time to prepare.

"He went in with a stick and he poked a hornet’s nest, and the resistance he got was a little bit more than he bargained for," said one official in the multinational force in Baghdad who requested anonymity. "They went in with 70 percent of a plan. Sometimes that’s enough. This time it wasn’t."

So this operation becomes every bit as ridiculous as the original invasion five years ago. Can you say "cakewalk"? Does the phrase, "You go to war with the army you have," ring a bell?