Was the Iraq war intended to be a brief, high tech war or a long occupation?

Question

How was this war sold to the public, as a long one or a short one?

Answer 1

I don't recall that the length of the war was mentioned as a "selling" point, but to answer your basic question, I believe that it was expected to be relatively brief. The reason for this was the opinion supplied by M. Chualabi (Sp.?) that once Saddam was overthrown the Iraqi people would be so overjoyed that they would fall all over themselves getting the country back in shape and on our side. The problem was that Iraq contained many, many sectarian interests that have never gotten along, and without despotic rule - Saddam's - they put those interests before any national interest. We did not count on that depth of division. The other part of the problem is that other Islamic countries in the area do not want to see a westernized Iraq; it would set a bad example for their own people. Iran is a good example. So they are doing all they can to destabilize what we are trying to do in Iraq. Also, we wrongly assumed that Iraq and others in the area were much like us - that they had, or wanted to have, a generally modern nation with full employment in modern types of commerce and industry. A large number do not. Your modern jihadist is first of all unemployed as we understand the word. If they weren't, they would have no time for fomenting violence nor desire to risk getting themselves killed. In short, they do not understand the issues, and we did not anticipate this intrinsic misalignment of goals. For this reason, it will be a long game with many overtimes.

Answer 2

A long occupation, of course sold by Rummy himself otherwise. The Dumbya Coup can steal as long as they can get the American people to fund that which covers the worlds biggest theft, the fog of war.

Answer 3

Long war

Answer 4

The people who wanted this war, Bush and the republican greed empire wanted it to be long and knew that it would be. They knew that once we went in there would be no easy way out, which is exactly what they wanted. They are getting richer and richer as more and more die there.

Answer 5

Was sold as short (five year) war.

Answer 6

I think they thought they would invade Iraq and everybody would be happy, then they would leave after they put a puppet on the government and oil would be for Dubya and Halliburton.

Answer 7

Long, bitter struggle like that of Israel.