modesty comes too late

The Pentagon has been conducting war games to determine what may happen in Iraq if the US pulls out of there. They aren't quite sure. "Would the Iraqi government find its way, or would the country divide along sectarian lines? Would al-Qaeda take over? Would Iran? Would U.S. security improve or deteriorate? Does the answer depend on when, how and how many U.S. troops depart?" One anonymous officer (and an Iraq veteran) was quoted as saying "The water-cooler chat I hear most often . . . is that there is going to be an outbreak of violence when we leave that makes the [current] instability look like a church picnic."

One person, identified as "(a) senior administration official closely involved in Iraq policy imagines a vast internecine slaughter as Iraq descends into chaos."

Ouch. But then that same senior administration officials says he might be wrong. After all, "We've got to be very modest about our predictive capabilities."

Now where the hell was THAT attitude in late 2002/early 2003, when the de facto Bush Administration was predicting: a cakewalk; that our troops would be greeted as liberators; that they would find massive caches of WMD.

This modesty comes about 5 years too late to be any good. Now it is just used to say, "gosh it is possible it won't be totally f***ed there when we leave." Inspiring.