I have just finished reading Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor. I heartily recommend it to both opponents and proponents of the war. The authors, respectively the NYT's military corresponent and a retired Marine general, give a detailed and lucid account of how the war was planned, implemented, and resourced. There are many chapters with minute-by-minute accounts of battles, which afficianodos of military history may find particularly absorbing. (I was intrigued by the obvious source of so much of this book, battlefield commanders and troops, who did not support the Rumsfeld view of what was going on--they didn't say so at the time, but they say so now in this volume.)

The Epilogue enumerates "five grievous errors" made by the administration and its team that are well worth thinking about. I quote from the conclusion of one of those errors: "The failure to adapt to developments on the battlefield."

"The failure to read the early signs of the insurgency and to adapt accordingly was all the more surprising given the Bush administration's repeated assertions that Saddam's regime was allied with Osama bin Laden and terrorist organizations...and given confirmed intelligence reports that jihadists had infiltrated from Syria. Had the administration taken its own counsel to heart, it would have been planning to wage a counterinsurgency and conduct antiterrorist operations as soon as Baghdad fell."

Ironies abound! As do bad judgments from beginning to end.