Winning the peace

"Here's the deal -- we can't the war in Iraq. Even if by some miracle we should win it militarily, our occupying force is going to be picked off by suicide bombers from all over the Middle East. It'll be like Woodstock for our enemies. Imagine, hundreds of thousands of US troops a bus ride away, and throw in some CIA and FBI, and civillians [sic] from Bechtel and Lockheed-Martin. It'll make Vietnam look like a pot party."

—Dave Winer, "A new doctrine," March 2003

"In fact, some senior Pentagon officials had thought they could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003. Instead, more than a year later, 138,000 U.S. troops are still fighting terrorists who slip easily across Iraq's long borders, diehards from the old regime and Iraqis angered by their country's widespread crime and unemployment and America's sometimes heavy boots."

—Knight Ridder, "Post-war planning non-existent," October 2004