"What accounts for the failure of American policy in Iraq?"

[BurtWorm]

Ken Silverstein of Harper's asked this of Dr. Emile Nakhleh, the CIA's Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, "the intelligence community's premier group dedicated to the issue of political Islam." Nakhleh recently resigned from the post, and this is his first interview since leaving the CIA (Brought to my attention by Laura Rozen of warandpiece.com):

http://harpers.org/sb-six-questions-emile-nakhleh-1158706094.html

The main reason for our failure in Iraq was not looking at the “morning after.” It was obvious that the military campaign would succeed, but there was also an ideological view among some administration officials that we would be received as liberators. Those people did not understand that just because the Iraqis hated Saddam, that didn't mean they would like our occupation.

Iraq was more complex than just Saddam. We should have learned from the experience of the British in the 1920s, when modern Iraq was created—namely, that bringing in outside leaders would not work. People expressed views about the need to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq, about the potential for sectarian violence and the rise of militias, about the fact that the Shiites would want to rise politically. These were not minority views in the intelligence community, but the administration ended up listening to other voices. The focus was on invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam, and after that everything would be fine and dandy.

[MadMaddie]

1. They were warned about what would happen if the US was

not prepared....this in itself is criminal negligence....they must be prosecuted....

[BeFree]

7. They were warned, and they knew better.

The problem is that the current situation is what bushco desired.

They wanted endless war: they got it.

They wanted chaos: they got it.

There never was any plan for making peace. They wanted to stir up the middle east, and it is stirred. All the money poured into Iraq was just to make it look like peace was desired, that and to rip off the US treasury.

[Jacobin]

2. It was a stupid idea to begin with

That's what's wrong with it.

Kinda like asking: "Gee why didn't my recipe for grilling chicken stuffed with rat shit turn out better? Maybe I should hire some experts to find out."

[BurtWorm]

3. Obviously, the question is not being asked naively.

It's being asked of an analyst who was available to the Bushists when the war was concocted.

[raccoon]

4. Some editing needs to be done to this article.

Such as:

"The main reason for our the Junta's failure in Iraq was not looking at the “morning after.”

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. In a country dominated by Ivy league & Stanford grads

You would think that somebody would have tried to think this war thing through before giving it 90% support or whatever the hell it was back then.

[Tesha]

8. Quite a few *DID* think it through. We were deemed "focus groups". (NT)

[GeorgeGist]

6. The answer is ...

American Policy.

[uppityperson]

9. Arrogance.

Being above all, feeling that just because something was desired that it was right and everything would go as they assumed it would. "I am all powerful" arrogance. Ideoligical view that They Were Right because they thought they were right. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/setting-record-straight/
for a specific example, try this one http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-4.html