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In the “battlespace” where this was occurring, the Revolution in Military Affairs provided U.S. forces with no discernible advantage. The Americans certainly did not “own the clock.” Despite all the technological paraphernalia in their possession, U.S. forces were effectively fighting blind. Lacking adequate intelligence, they conducted massive nighttime “sweeps” in which they knocked down doors, terrorized Iraqi women and children, and detained large numbers of military-age men. They threw innocent and guilty alike into overcrowded detention camps that then served as incubators of anti-American resistance.

The result was not to suppress but further inflame an insurgency that was destabilizing Iraq. As U.S. troops moved about Baghdad and other cities, they found themselves continually ambushed. Relying increasingly on roadside bombs and other explosive devices, insurgents called the tune; the Americans danced. Meanwhile, the Abu Ghraib scandal was in full flower, with photographs of GIs sadistically abusing Iraqi detainees demolishing Washington’s pretensions to moral superiority.

As things went from bad to worse, Rumsfeld’s knowledge-centric, coherently joint, fully networked concept of military transformation offered little of value. The RMA ostensibly provided a surefire formula for making wars short and decisive. In Iraq, the formula failed, abysmally. The Bush administration’s official narrative of a brief encounter ending neatly in “mission accomplished” disintegrated. The war became incoherent. Fighting simply went on and on, with U.S. forces groping ineffectually to regain control. Caught in the middle were Iraqi civilians who suffered and died or simply fled their homes or the country in alarming numbers, giving the lie to claims that the United States had discovered a more discriminating and humane approach to waging war.

During the opening stages of the Iraq War, Western observers had had great fun at the expense of Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi information minister. Mockingly known as Baghdad Bob, al-Sahhaf had periodically provided Western reporters in Baghdad with the Iraqi government’s version of events. As late as April 8, 2003, with U.S. armored columns already cruising through the Iraqi capital, he was still predicting that coalition forces were “going to surrender or be burned in their tanks.” Victory over the invaders, he insisted, was just around the corner. Baghdad Bob’s assessments evoked gales of laughter: Only a knave or a fool could express views so obviously at odds with reality.

By the spring and summer of 2004, those presenting the official U.S. interpretation of events in Iraq were sounding more than a little like Baghdad Bob. President Bush, for example, clung to the delusion that the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty, scheduled for June 30, held the key to restoring peace and harmony across that nation. Speaking at a press conference on April 13, the president was once again ready to declare the mission accomplished.

The nation of Iraq is moving toward self-rule, and Iraqis and Americans will see evidence in the months to come. On June 30th, when the flag of free Iraq is raised, Iraqi officials will assume full responsibility for the ministries of Government. On that day, the transitional administrative law, including a bill of rights that is unprecedented in the Arab world, will take full effect.23

Donald Rumsfeld shared this upbeat assessment of Iraq’s prospects. “They’ve got the schools open,” he told a television interviewer on April 29. “They’ve got the hospitals open. They’ve got the clinics open. There was not a humanitarian crisis. Food is there and available to the people. The people are able to form a part of an Olympic team. They’ve got a symphony that’s started.”24 Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith corroborated these findings. In a speech at a conservative think tank on May 4, he reported that over the course of the previous twelve months, “Iraq has been transformed.” The economy was