At a press conference after the U. S invasion of Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was questioned about the scenes of chaos and looting in Baghdad. “Stuff happens” was his response to indications that things weren’t exactly going according to plan. As events unfolded it was becoming increasingly clear that the architects of the invasion – Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz- had seriously underestimated the potential for an Iraqi insurgency and the troop numbers needed to contain it.  

How could they have been so wrong? One study suggests there was little planning for maintaining order and stability after the invasion because it was thought that the task would be easy. The Bush administration assumed that Iraq 2003 would be a cakewalk but the reality was different. Senior administration figures believed that American soldiers would be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqis and that local security forces would willingly assist the occupation of their own country by a foreign power. Even at the time these assumptions seemed a barely credible exercise in wishful thinking, and their naïvety was demonstrated by the disaster that unfolded after the invasion. How could Rumsfeld and other members of the administration have believed that things would be so easy? What were they thinking?