Rice Adviser: Iraq Invasion Was 'F*cking Stupid'

[katty]

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/28/rice-adviser-iraq-invasio_n_115398.html

Rice Adviser: Iraq Invasion Was 'F*cking Stupid'
July 28, 2008 01:54 PM
"A Counterinsurgency Guide for Politicos." The Indy has obtained a copy of a forthcoming manual on counterinsurgency strategy written by

David Kilcullen, a "former Australian Army officer who is now an adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

The handbook seeks to provide a framework for considering whether Washington should intervene in foreign countries' counterinsurgency operations, raising difficult questions about whether such nations deserve U.S. support; under what conditions that support should occur, and whether success is possible at acceptable cost. No systematic approach to strategic-level questions in counterinsurgency currently exists for senior U.S. government officials.

And how difficult are the questions being raised? Well, in what's sure to be the pull-quote of the piece for those media outlets who still consider anything other than Surge Logic (TM) important, Kilcullen provides a little color:

More bluntly, Kilcullen, who helped Petraeus design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" -- in fact, he said "fucking stupid" -- and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual's lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future.

"The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place."

[hobbit709]

1. No shit, sherlock!

[jimshoes]

2. They would like to try it again

in Iran don'tcha know.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Man. I remember walking around thinking everyone went looney tunes

right before we attacked Iraq. I broke a friendship because I thought someone was too ass-stupid to talk to anymore.