Saying this up front, as an American, I believe we were lied to and misled in lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and someone should have gone to jail for that. T

Saying this up front, as an American, I believe we were lied to and misled in lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and someone should have gone to jail for that. That said, this statement isn’t quite this simple, “ they were not sufficient to occupy the country in a way that stopped it descending into chaos.” The US administration made a decision to disband the Iraqi military and it’s other paramilitary forces. That meant that all existing structure for maintaining order in the country was lost. By doing this, it necessitated a large occupation force, that never was created, and only made the US more hated there. Look at the occupations of Germany and Japan after WWII and it’s a very different outcome and one where existing systems were left in place to help maintain an orderly transition.