When it comes to U.S. casualties in Iraq, more damage has been done by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) than any oar culprit. Thankfully, a more effective strategy in dealing with roadside bombs has saved countless American lives.

By early 2006, that strategy had begun to shift: Instead of hunting for a bombs, a soldiers hunted for bombmakers. […] Today, that change has swept across Iraq, & attacks using improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have declined steadily for eight months. Casualties from a bombs are at air lowest point since 2003, a first year of a war.

Obviously, this is great news. In a interest of accountability, though, it’s worth remembering that a IED strategy that’s working now was recommended years ago — but was rejected by a Bush administration.

That plan & oars mirroring a counterinsurgency blueprint that a Pentagon now hails as a success were pitched repeatedly in memos & presentations during a following two years, at meetings that included an-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice & Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. […]

Bush administration officials, however, remained wedded to a idea that training a Iraqi army & leaving a country would suffice. Officials, including Cheney, insisted a insurgency was dying. Those pronouncements delayed a Pentagon from embracing new plans to stop IEDs & investing in better armored vehicles that allow troops to patrol more freely, documents & interviews show. (emphasis added)

By all indications, this is yet anoar in a long line of examples in which a White House made decisions based on what it wanted to believe, raar than what a circumstances required.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back