Incompetence

Tom Bevan has some thoughts about the management of the Iraq War:

Here's the problem: It's easy to sit back and see in hindsight where things could have been done differently which may - and I stress the word "may" - have led to a different result. But even those things which war critics cite most often as examples of mismanagement do not, in and of themselves, represent evidence of "incompetence". For example, it is by no means certain we would be in any better position in Iraq today if we had devoted an additional three weeks to pre-war planning, or if we had decided to try and de-Bathify the Iraqi military instead of disbanding it.

Even the charge of not having enough troops in Iraq (to my mind the most legitimate criticism of the war, coming mostly from the right) is debatable. Such a policy might possibly have fueled a greater sense of occupation, strengthened the insurgency and also resulted in more U.S. casualties. There is no way of knowing what could have been based on decisions that weren't made.

I'll take this a step further. For the sake of argument let's say that clear mistakes were made. But does that imply incompetence or an almost criminal negligence as some have alleged? War is no simple business, and I have yet to find the war that was fought in mistake-free fashion. That mistakes were made should not be regarded as a surprise -- the only surprise would be if there weren't any.
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People may forget, but the greatest U.S. intelligence failure of all time is not the failure to locate WMD in Iraq but the failure to locate the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor. Or think about the Korean War in which the surprise Chinese entrance into the conflict resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans. Even smaller conflicts have had their share of errors. Take the invasion of Grenada for instance:

The U.S. forces did achieve victory but no military operation ever has been, or ever will be, flawless. Campaigns are planned and battles are fought by people, and people err. After Urgent Fury, the U.S. military became sensitive to criticism, some ill informed, about how the operation had been conducted. However, the uninformed allegations had gone uncomfortable near the mark. Although the campaign succeeded, the dearth of intelligence, which resulted in units going into the island blind; serious planning errors; an absence of strategic or tactical surprise; the failure to achieve concentration at decisive points; continuous communication snarl-ups; and the lack of interservice coordination or overall ground commander all helped to fuel protests heard around the world. American armed forces were unprepared to respond to a crisis as a coherent joint force with all the inherent complexities.

Also consider Panama in 1989 when U.S. forces failed to locate Manuel Noriega until he holed up in the Vatican Embassy. There was also considerable civil disorder:

One notorious after-effect of the invasion was nearly two weeks of widespread looting and lawlessness, a contingency which the United States military apparently had not anticipated. This looting inflicted catastrophic losses on many Panamanian businesses, some of which took several years to recover.

Or Lebanon in which scores of Marines died due to faulty security that allowed a suicide bomber to blow up their barracks, or even the Persian Gulf War which was ended far too soon and laid the groundwork for the current Iraq War.
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To point out that mistakes occurred is not to prove incompetence. Rather, we must establish that the mistakes were of such magnitude and so easily foreseen that only gross negligence failed to prevent them. Can that case be made? Perhaps, but I am not sure that it is by any means clear-cut.
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As Bevan points out, it must also be noted that along with the alleged mistakes that considerable progress has been made:

Toppled Saddam's government in less than two weeks. Avoided doomsday scenarios of environmental and humanitarian disasters. Established provisional government. Held the most open, free and fair elections in decades. Established interim government. Reached deal on Constitution. Tomorrow a referendum on the charter and two months later, full elections. All of this accomplished in just over two and a half years with less than 2,000 U.S. combat deaths. The war in Iraq is not without problems, but despite the relentlessly negative press coverage pumped out to the public every day, from a historical perspective we've made astonishing progress.

Furthermore the Pentagon has shown an admirable willingness to adapt to a changing situation. When Iraqi forces last year performed poorly their training program was revamped by Gen. Petraeus -- to good effect. Fallujah has been cleaned out. Mosul is far improved. Najaf and Karbala handed over to Iraqi control. And shifting away from Vietnam-era search and destroy missions the emphasis now seems to be on the "inkblot strategy" highlighted by Andrew Krepinevich in which towns cleared of insurgents are garrisoned by Iraqi and U.S. forces to create safe havens.
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Almost undoubtedly there have been errors in Iraq, perhaps even grevious ones. But I remain unconvinced that the Pentagon leadership -- the same ones who conceived of and executed a brilliant invasion of Afghanistan -- are suddenly the gang that couldn't shoot straight.