Ex-Rumsfeld deputy describes Iraq as 'major debacle'

clipped from blogs.usatoday.com The Iraq war has turned into a "major debacle," a former Pentagon official writes in a report published by the National Defense University in Washington. "Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle," Joseph Collins writes at the beginning of his 60-page article. Collins, a retired Army colonel, served as a senior DoD official under Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. Among the conclusions he reaches in Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath: To date, the war in Iraq is a classic case of failure to adopt and adapt prudent courses of action that balance ends, ways, and means Globally, U.S. standing among friends and allies has fallen. Our status as a moral leader has been damaged by the war At the same time, operations in Iraq have had a negative impact on all other efforts in the war on terror The central finding of this study is that U.S. efforts in Iraq were hobbled by a set of faulty assumptions