“A top U.S. official for aid to Iraq has accused the Bush administration of rushing unprepared into the 2003 invasion because of pressures from President Bush’s approaching reelection campaign.
“Robin Raphel, the State Department’s coordinator for Iraq assistance, said that the invasion’s timing was driven by ‘clear political pressure,’ as well as by the need to quickly deploy the U.S. troops that had been amassed by the Iraq border.
Soon after the invasion, Raphel said, it became clear that U.S. officials ‘could not run a country we did not understand. It was very much amateur hour.'”
From an Australian perspective, many questions remain, namely the real reason Prime Minister John Howard committed to the Iraq invasion and what he hoped our country would get out of it.