"It is unknowable how long the conflict [in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -February, 2003

That's how it was sold to us. Not as a nine (or more?) year affair. They knew damn well the public wouldn't go for that. Would you?

The neocons did not understand what Churchill did:

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

We tried to warn them, but.....