I’ve paid a lot of attention here to the deceptions that were employed to goad this country into war, and not enough to the negligence on the part of the civilian leadership in preparing for the aftermath. Phil Carter published an item that discusses the poor planning and why we should have known better. Unfortunately, the historical lessons that showed that a large force was necessary for successful occupation were ignored in order to prove a point about how the military ought to be used. This, to me, is yet another huge reason why people ought not vote for Bush. The bottom line is that he placed his trust in people who place a higher priority on validating their preferred war fighting doctrine than on protecting American troops or successfully liberating the Iraqis.