The neocons. Kinda like The Young and the Restless meets F-Troop, except the tears, bullets, backstabbing and blunders are real. And nowhere near as funny.

First, this thunderbolt of candor from a surprising source:

WaPo:

Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels
Ex-Overseer of Iraq Says U.S. Effort Was Hampered Early On

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."

Bremer's comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion. Bremer has generally defended the U.S. approach in Iraq but in recent weeks has begun to criticize the administration for tactical and policy shortfalls.... [More]

Okay, you're not really surprised, are you? If you are, perhaps you're asking yourself "Why would he do such a thing? Is he disloyal? Crazy? Surely he's not a Kerry supporter?" Fugeddaboudit. He just doesn't particularly want to be ground into sausage by his old "friends"...

A veteran Sate Department official, writing as "Anonymous," in Salon:

Secretary of State Colin Powell is not staying for a second Bush term...  

The realization that the same neocons who dismissed State's accurate "Future of Iraq Project," prepared before the war, may now take over at State in the second term is widely viewed inside the department as a threat to the very integrity of the country's diplomatic first line of defense. Corridor discussion has turned desperate -- maybe former Secretary of State James Baker will intervene, maybe former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft will talk to someone, maybe 41 will talk to 43...

Powell's early 2005 departure is the subject of intense jockeying among the neocons. A Perle neocon protégé, Michael Rubin, has been given the task of destroying the only competition -- L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, the former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority chief, not a neocon insider and the favorite of traditional Republican conservatives. The neocon plan is to make Bremer the scapegoat: It was not bad neocon policy, it was bad Bremer decisions that has led to the fiasco in Iraq. Rubin was sent to Baghdad to be Wolfowitz's man inside the CPA. Bremer dissed Rubin as a lightweight. Rubin tried to push neocon policy inside the CPA -- what he, Perle and Ahmed Chalabi had pushed from the American Enterprise Institute -- restoring the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq by placing Jordan's Crown Prince Hassan on the throne. Bremer would have none of it. Rubin is now tasked by Perle and Wolfowitz to trash Bremer -- which he is dutifully doing in print and media appearances arranged by neocon handler, lecture agent and media booker Eleana Benador. They intend to close the Foggy Bottom door to any aspirations Bremer, a former Foreign Service officer and Kissinger protégé, might have to take over from Powell.

Given the implosion of Iraq, Wolfowitz and his coterie have doubts that Wolfowitz can be confirmed as secretary (of either DOD or State) without a debilitating confirmation process, though State remains choice No. 1. A more complicated plan is to again play behind Condoleezza Rice. With Rice as secretary of state and Wolfowitz in as national security advisor, neocons would put David Wurmser or John Bolton in as Rice's deputy, replacing Armitage.... [More]

Is all the frantic maneuvering really supposed to get the cherry job for Wolfie or Condi in Foggy Bottom or Arlington? Nah. they're scaterring. Or looking for "Human Shields." Because that disgraceful chickenshit henhouse known as the media is rousing to the fact that Iraq was, is, and will forever be a cosmic blunder diametrically opposed to the Life, Liberty and Happiness rulebook. In fact, the AP thinks it's more complex and troublesome than that little S.E. Asia thingy a few years back.

Associated Press:

U.S. Faces Complex Insurgency in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military is fighting the most complex guerrilla war in its history, with 140,000 American soldiers trained for conventional warfare flailing against a thicket of insurgent groups with competing aims and no supreme leader.

The three dozen or so guerrilla bands agree on little beyond forcing the Americans out of Iraq

In other U.S. wars, the enemy was clear. In Vietnam, a visible leader--Ho Chi Minh--led a single army fighting to unify the country under socialism. But in Iraq, the disorganized insurgency has no single commander, no political wing and no dominant group.

U.S. troops can't settle on a single approach to fight groups whose goals and operations vary. And it's hard to sort combatants from civilians in a chaotic land where large parts of some communities support the insurgents and others are too afraid to risk their lives to help foreigners.

"It's more complex and challenging than any other insurgency the United States has fought," aid Bruce Hoffman, a RAND counterinsurgency expert who served as an adviser to the U.S.-led occupation administration.

They said it's "The CEO administration." Nobody thought to ask: "Koslowski? Or Kelleher?"