Everyone is a genius...

"There's No Reason Why [Iraq] Shouldn't Be A Walkover"

Is time on the United States' side in this battle?

Yeah. I really think time is on our side here. This is a fragile society, a little old one-town country, the size of Nebraska, maybe a little bigger, with the GDP about half the Army budget. So if this is a hard problem, we ought to get ourselves some new generals. I mean there's no reason why this shouldn't be a walkover.

And here we learn that McPeak "publicly opposed the current Iraq campaign from the start". Gee, a retired member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed the war and the Times missed it. But James Fallows of The Atlantic confirms it, as of Nov 2002 anyway.