In fact, prior to the war starting, an entire company of Iraqis heard gun fire and explosions, which turned out to be test fires, and thought the war had started. They promptly marched across the boarder to a British outpost, and attempted to surrender to the outpost. The war had not yet started, and the Brits were forced to send the soldiers back because they were not ready to accept surrendered troops.
Faced with this information, no one in government is going to assume this will be a hard fight.
No one anticipated the influence of Iran and Al Qaeda, nor the mass chaos of the power vacuum. Maybe they should have, and maybe we could have had better post-war Iraq plans. But it's pointless to play would have, could have, should have games now. We need to finish the remaining provinces, and eliminate the remains of terrorist still operating in northern Iraq. And finely turn over each province as the Iraqi government is able to take back local control, without alerting every terrorist of the exact day we will be leaving, so as to not give them a target to attack.
If we say we're leaving March 3rd, the opposition will lay low and grow their supplies, thus making everyone feel is though the problems are over. Then after we leave, they will start hostilities again. This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. We advertised we were leaving, and wouldn't come back. Then shockingly after we left, they attacked relentlessly until they defeated the nation we fought successfully to protect. Thank you democrats. Have you learned nothing?
