April 18, 2003 - I admit it. I was surprised that the Iraqi armed services were so easily overcome. I expected the Allied body count to be far greater than the 157 that it has been. My expectations were based upon the information originating in my government and disseminated by government design through the media to which I have access. In the run-up to the Second Iraqi War my government painted a picture of an implacable foe with a dedicated and well trained military force armed with fearsome weapons. Part of that picture was designed to justify the resort to war that we knew had been inevitable since the President made his January, 2002 declaration of the Axis of Evil. Part of it was designed to minimize the political consequences flowing from the impact of the death and injury to America’s youth. Our expectations were formed by the information we were provided.

Events proved that the Iraqi military was not made up of fanatical loyalists; that it was ill-equipped to resist a well equipped and trained invading force; and that the fearsome weapons we expected to be arrayed against it were an illusion. The information we were spoon-fed turned out to be inaccurate and, thankfully, so did the expectations we had as a result. Conquest turned out to be far less costly in both Allied and Iraqi lives than we were led to expect. Expectations are only accurate when the information upon which the expectations were based is itself accurate. The information we were provided by our government was not. The Iraqi army was no more fearsome than was the Polish army when it charged Panzer columns while mounted on horses.

We must either conclude that our intelligence services estimates of Iraqi strength and resolve were so woefully off the mark as to be incompetent or that our own government lied to us and to the world by exaggerating the threat that Iraq posed to the world, to the region, and to the United States. Iraq was not equipped to defend itself, much less to project its influence militarily beyond the confines in which it had been locked since the end of the First Iraqi War. That is the central fact that Central Command has proved in the first three weeks of the Second Iraqi War.

But make no mistake. This campaign is not over as the campaign in Afghanistan is not over. Iraqis are still charging columns of Abram tanks mounted on Toyota pickup trucks just as US troops are still being ambushed in Afghanistan. Images of crowds dancing in the streets and handing flowers to US Marines are being replaced with images of larger crowds shaking their fists at US Marines.

Historians will write that the Allied losses in this campaign were light, but as America and Britain pause to celebrate Easter and its promise of eternal life for 157 families the losses have been heavy indeed and for them there will be no resurrection. What purpose has been achieved by these deaths and the deaths of 10 times that number or Iraqis? What purpose will be served by those deaths to come? There is only one answer; the realization of old men’s dreams of an American Empire achieving hegemony over the world. That promises not eternal life and peace but rather endless war and death.

My Country is better than that!