"It has been five years since the United States invaded Iraq and the world watched in horror as what seemed like a swift victory by modern soldiers and 21st-century weapons became a nightmare of spiraling violence, sectarian warfare, insurgency, roadside bombings and ghastly executions. Iraq's economy was destroyed, and America's reputation was shredded in the torture rooms of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the Central Intelligence Agency's secret prisons.


These were hard and very costly lessons for a country that had emerged from the cold war as the world's sole remaining superpower. Shockingly, President Bush seems to have learned none of them.



In a speech on Wednesday, the start of the war's sixth year, Mr. Bush was stuck in the Neverland of his "Mission Accomplished" speech. In his mind's eye, the invasion was a "remarkable display of military effectiveness" that will be studied for generations. The war has placed the nation on the brink of a great "strategic victory" in Iraq and against terrorists the world over.

Even now, Mr. Bush talks of Iraqi troops who "took off their uniforms and faded into the countryside to fight the emergence of a free Iraq" — when everyone knows that the American pro-consul, L. Paul Bremer III, overrode Mr. Bush's national security team and, with the president's blessing, made the catastrophically bad decision to disband the Iraqi Army and police force.

Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe that Iraq was on the verge of "full-blown sectarian warfare" when he boldly ordered an escalation of forces around Baghdad last year. In fact, sectarian warfare was raging for months while Mr. Bush refused to listen to the generals, who wanted a new military approach, or to the vast majority of Americans, who just wanted him to end the war.

All evidence to the contrary, Mr. Bush is still trying to make it seem as if Al Qaeda in Iraq was connected to the Al Qaeda that attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. He tried to justify an unjustifiable war by ticking off benefits of deposing Saddam Hussein, but he somehow managed to forget the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Vice President Dick Cheney was equally deep in denial on Monday when he declared at a news conference in Baghdad that it has all been "well worth the effort."..."


Ptui.

(Above is from a NYT Editorial)