But I'll say it again - regardless of their IQ, none of the people you name knew anything about Iraq other than where to find it on a map, that its capital is Baghdad, and that it has lots of oil. Country experts in the CIA, the State Department, and academia were ignored.
People take more care researching vacation destinations.
...................
Precisely.
This is the key point, they knew nothing about their target. As I wrote before, their "miscalculation", as Marvin put it, was more than a mere error; it was a colossal example of dumb-assedness brought on by arrogance.
Arrogance, not simply as a moral failing but an impediment to proper planning.
I mean, Jesus Christ, a review of the work of knowledgeable journalists and scholars would at least have given them a chance of crafting plans based upon reality. It's very, very clear they didn't take advantage of the information that was freely available.
In this instance, intelligence is irrelevant. I'm fairly clever but I'm not qualified to fly an F-22 and wouldn't try even if given the opportunity because I wouldn't know what the hell I was doing. The fact the Bush team has 'bright, experienced people' in it is meaningless if these brights didn't first use their quick minds to conclude they lacked the necessary background to create a thorough strategy.
American power was built by much more capable people. The current rulership is running on the fumes of earlier accomplishments.
I agree that simply calling Bush et. al. "stupid" and patting ourselves on the back for being the smart ones is insufficient but this isn't what I'm advocating.
We must recognize these people are the addled-due-to-vainglory relatives who're running the family business into the ground and stop thinking we're contending with the modern avatars of Napoleon, Augustus and Qin Shi Huangdi.
.d.
--------- "If human beings had more of a sene of humor, things might have turned out differently."
Stanislav Lem