No End in Sight

I went and saw No End in Sight last night. As a documentary, it did a good job of showing the very fast lead-up to the war in Iraq, the miscommunication (or lack of communication) between the people initially sent to Iraq and the administration at home. It also did a good job of showing the frustration that true Iraq experts had in working with those running the war in the Bush Administration.

In my opinion, one of the best things that was (tacitly) held up for the audience to judge was the inability to understand/apathy of the people in the White House to the sensitivities of how the situation in Iraq would play out. Starting with the looting, moving to de-Ba'athification, and on to the disbanding of the Iraqi military. It's as if we hadn't learned anything from history (from WWII through the war in Kosovo). Leaders apparently tried to paint the actions in Iraq as a completely new phenomenon. However, after watching the film, I think that many of the decisions were made in a vacuum, with the Americans getting hole up in the Green Zone, or staying in DC. The film focused primarily on the actions in 2003 and early 2004.