1115.org

I wish I could take credit for the brilliant title of this post. Really, I do. But that honor goes to our President, who, in a recent interview, actually used the term to describe the invasion of Iraq.

He called the swift military offensive that led to the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 “a catastrophic success” even though fighting continues despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government.

Think about that one for too long and you’ll start to feel individual brian cells popping like bubble wrap. We’ve had success in creating a catastrophe? What?

While interpreting the President’s words can sometimes be a task better suited to an ouija board and Miss Cleo, this one is actually somewhat easy. Bush is saying that a lot of the current conflicts in Iraq are the result of our initial military victory being too quick and successful. If only Saddam Hussein’s soldiers had put up more of a fight, his supporters would have been killed on the battlefield instead of promoting terrorism, and this whole mess might have never happened. Of course, this brings up two really obvious questions that apparently went unsaid during the remainder of the interview:

1 - Why on Earth wasn’t there a contingency plan put into place in the event of a fast military victory? It’s not like it was such an impossibility, considering all of the talk about Iraqis welcoming us with flowers and such.

2 - If much of the current violence can be attributed to ex-Saddam loyalists and Iraqi military (which, obviously, doesn’t account for any Al Queda fighters or the Mehdi Army), wasn’t is a colossal mistake for the United States to disband the Iraqi army almost immediately after taking power?

Anyone can drop a few bombs�the real test is in sweeping up the mess they leave behind. While it’s nice to see the President make baby steps toward admitting at least a few mistakes in the war’s planning and execution, words mean far less than actions. No one has yet been fired for the war’s botched planning, and no one likely will be. No one pays the price for this catastrophic success, except our soldiers, the Iraqi people and–of course–the American taxpayer.