Stuck on stupid

While DB still thinks his comments in Vietnam are among the stupidest ever uttered by a president, every time Iraq is mentioned, a different stupid Bush utterance comes to mind.

After the Haditha news broke, DB wrote the following:

Regardless of how we got into this war (sigh), there was a turning point -- a key moment when the war changed from taking down Saddam to the quagmire we've been stuck in for two years. A key moment when the situation changed not just from fighting to rebuilding, but from a war our troops were prepared and equipped to win into a mess they were asked to clean up without the necessary support or tools.

It's probably foolish to pinpoint the exact moment in time when the situation shifted, but DB has an eye on what this blogger would call the prime candidate. No, not "Mission Accomplished." Not the fall of the Saddam statue or when they pulled him out of the spider hole.

No, the turning point was Dec. 11, 2003. The president had already denied that the "mission accomplished" banner behind him on the USS Abraham Lincoln referred to the entire war effort (and just six weeks earlier he blamed the Navy for putting up that banner).

After a cabinet meeting, Dec. 11, 2003, the president made it clear that, despite what he said about the banner, in his view the war was essentially won.

"Our people risked their lives. Friendly coalition folks risked their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that."

Aside from the fact that giving billions to companies like Halliburton is in no way a reflection of the sacrifices made by our troops, the president's use of the word "risked," in the past tense, highlights that he felt that the risks had already been taken and it was time to enjoy the rewards.

The president had an opportunity to bring other nations into the crucial and more difficult phase of stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq, but he didn't want to share the profits. So he told the rest of the region and the rest of the world to take a hike. It was this greed and the administration's immense misreading of reality that essentially doomed U.S. forces to be left to defend Iraq against the insurgency all alone, without sufficient troop levels, body armor, mental health resources... the list goes on.

Hubris and avarice, the two pillars of the Bush Administration.