WTF Is It Now?!?

Why did the capture of Saddam accomplish so little?

A year ago a bedraggled Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground to a chorus of self-congratulatory remarks from United States officials claiming that his capture marked a turning point in the war in Iraq.

821 US soldiers and uncounted Iraqi civilians have died since his capture, 300,000 people have been left homeless in Fallujah, and just yesterday an al-Qaida-linked suicide bomber killed 13 people near the US-controlled Green Zone.

"In the history of Iraq a dark and painful era is over," declared George W. Bush, as if describing the long-awaited end to a particularly bad case of hemorrhoids. "All Iraqis can now come together and build a new Iraq."

In between getting shot at or blown up, I suppose.

The self-deceiving optimism of US military commanders and the White House was extraordinary. They appear to have believed much of their own propaganda.