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misconception. the war worked pretty much fab. the after war effort has been dismal.
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Holy damn, that is a bizarre statement. They are one and the same. If the goal of the war was to make the US safer, make the region safer or whatever, it is very clear that seizing some territory is not all that important. No offence to yourself, but to me, this shows a military centric attitude that admires the execution of a initial battle plan and the deployment of some fancy killing toys in an efficient manner. Makes for good TV, but does little wrt achieving any of the actual aims of the war. My take is that the initial attack went well, the war is still ongoing and is doing miserably from about week 2 onwards. The only way you can say the war went well is if you narrow down the aim to toppling Saddam's gov't. If the war had any broader goals, it has failed.
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Weapons inspections weren't working because Saddam was only allowing them to see what he wanted to see.
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Dither over protocol all you want; I won't dispute Saddam made the inspection process hard. Nonetheless, the core goal was to keep Saddam from obtaining said weapons. As such, it seems the mission was accomplished. I came out a realist in that worldview test, and I guess it's showing up on my take here. Results are all that matter, and the UN got results despite difficulties and doubts along the way. The US has yet to get results despite throwing I don't know how many times the resources at the problem, so I call it a failure.