How Could So Many People Buy into Bush's "Patriotism Sweepstakes" War?

The Iraq War -- now ending its fifth bloody year -- represents not only a human tragedy of enormous consequence and possibly the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history but also a systemic failure of American political and journalistic institutions.

Instead of checking George W. Bush's imperial impulse for the good of the Republic, the Congress -- including Sen. Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats -- and the national press corps tended to their careers and their political viability.

In recognition of this tragedy, we are publishing the following excerpt from Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.

Iraq's "Day of Liberation" -- as George W. Bush called it -- was supposed to begin with a bombardment consisting of 3,000 U.S. missiles delivered over 48 hours, 10 times the number of bombs dropped during the first two days of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Officials, who were briefed on the plans, said the goal was to so stun the Iraqis that they would simply submit to the overwhelming force demonstrated by the U.S. military. Administration officials dubbed the strategy "shock and awe."

In his 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush had addressed the "brave and oppressed people of Iraq" with the reassuring message that "your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country."

Bush promised that the day that Saddam Hussein and his regime "are removed from power will be the day of your liberation."

But never before in history had a dominant world power planned to strike a much weaker nation in a preemptive war with such ferocity. It would be liberation through devastation.

Many projections expected the deaths of thousands of Iraqi non-combatants, no matter how targeted or precise the U.S. weapons. For those civilians, their end would come in the dark terror of crushing concrete or in the blinding flash of high explosives.

In the prelude to the invasion, the United Nations predicted possibly more than 500,000 civilians injured or killed during the war and its aftermath and nearly one million displaced from their homes.

The International Study Team, a Canadian non-governmental organization, raised similar alarms. The invasion of Iraq would cause a "grave humanitarian disaster," with potential casualties among children in "the tens of thousands, and possibly in the hundreds of thousands," the group said.

Assuming U.S. forces succeeded in eliminating Saddam Hussein and his army with relative speed, the post-war period still promised to be complicated and dangerous. The Bush administration outlined plans to occupy Iraq for at least 18 months, installing a military governor in the style of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Japan after World War II.

But it was not clear how the United States would police a population that was certain to include anti-American militants ready to employ suicide bombings and other irregular tactics against an occupying force.

Bin Laden's Message

There was the risk, too, that the U.S. invasion would play into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who circulated a message portraying himself as the defender of the Arab people.

"Anyone who tries to destroy our villages and cities, then we are going to destroy their villages and cities," the al-Qaeda leader said. "Anyone who steals our fortunes, then we must destroy their economy. Anyone who kills our civilians, then we are going to kill their civilians."

Some U.S. military strategists saw Bush's war plan as the worst sort of wishful thinking.

What if the Iraqi army -- instead of making itself an easy target for the U.S. missiles -- melted into urban centers and began coordinating with an armed civilian population to resist a foreign invasion of their homeland? What if the Iraqi people chose to fight the American invaders, rather than shower them with rose petals?