Quote Originally Posted by Hurin_Rules
I'm not going to wade in between Redleg and Tribesman, but I would like to point out that well before the war happened, many people (some within the US military) pointed out that Cheney and Rumsfeld's predictions were far too optomistic. When Cheney implied that the Americans would be greeted with 'flowers and candy' in the streets, many people, including myself, thought he had gone insane. The military's own estimates, from men like Shinseki, talked about 'several hundred thousand' US troops being needed. This is not hindsight. Many within the US military questioned Rumsfeld's 'war on the cheap' approach, and worried that there were not enough boots on the ground. Many analysts predicted an insurgency. And many laypeople understood that the Americans would not be greeted with flowers and candy.
Bingo - go back and find some of my post and thoughts about the use of only three United States divisions and one British division.

I saw an interesting interview with a TV reporter the other day-- i can't remember which US network he was from, unfortunately. But he described a revealing incident. He noted that an Iraqi government commando team was about to go into an insurgent stronghold, as US military personnel looked on. The commando team was yelling in arabic to psyche itself up before charging in. The US commander asked what they were shouting. The translator replied, "Death to Sunni Arabs!"
Interesting - is it because that the people they happen to be fighting consist mostley of Sunni Arabs?

The only possible outcome I see in Iraq right now is civil war, and I think its probably only a year or two away.
That is a distinct possiblity given the current political and religious/ethnic make-up of the Iraqi provisional government. Given that they can not really agree on thier constitution, nor many other aspects of their own self-governing.