Iraqi writes 500 pages detailing how Bush mishandled the war and detroyed his country.

In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators."

First came the "monumental ignorance" of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without "the faintest idea" of Iraq's realities. "More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society," he writes.

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:
_ The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

_ Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party — from government, school faculties and elsewhere — left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

_ An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

_ The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the "commercial gangs" of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

_ Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.

_ The CPA perpetuated Saddam's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.

If even the Iraqis who were put in charge of the new Iraqi government are calling this invasion a terrible misadventure then really who is left to defend our actions in Iraq?

Oh yeah, I forgot John McCain. The king of the slow learners.