remember the Mogadishu line..

ie. the number of US dead the US is willing to accept?
Im sure the level of public acceptance has gone up since 911
but the neocons are fully aware of it.

That unfortunately is the weakness of the US military, as a high casualty count is not acceptable at home.

The war planners might want to look at the Algerian insurgency
which the French won by a brutal counter insurgency, but ultimately the public back home was revulsed and guess who became the president of Algeria. The leader of the insurgents. One of the young French officers in Algeria was Jacque Chirac, its no wonder he tried to convince the US not to invade Iraq.

if Bush and Co. have any sense they will ultimately hand Iraq over to the Iraqis, but if they intend to hang on to those 14 bases and keep pulling the strings at some point the Mogadishu line will be crossed.
And this is an administration not known for its planning. Bush doesnt
allow any input from outside his small group. Remember Wolfowitzs rebuttal of Shinsekis estimate that several 100,000 troops will be required to keep the peace or Cheneys assertion the troops will be greeted with flowers. This is also the leadership that disbanded the Iraqi army and allowed all those (angry) and (frustrated) young men to go home with no income and their weapons. That has to be one of the top 10 stupidest military decisions of the past century.