Blueprint for a Mess
Blueprint for a Mess is a lengthy but good article about the Iraq war and occupation, from nytimes.com (quick free registration needed). It gives lots of historical background info on the neoconservative fixation on Chalabi as a good replacement for Saddam (despite Chalabi not having been in Bagdhad since the 1950s), Bush's shift from his original position of not wanting to engage in "nation building" until 9/11 convinced him to go along with the (already existing for years) plans to oust Saddam, as well as discussing the current occupation and why it is such a mess compared to what the administration was predicting, and how reports and officials who warned of the difficulties were excluded from planning sessions (and why it is bogus for the administration to act all surprised and ask how could we have known there might be riots, looting, and violent resistance — since these things have usually occurred in other overthrows and military interventions, e.g. Kosovo, Panama, etc.) and disastrous blunders like protecting the Oil Ministry ("This decision to protect only the Oil Ministry — not the National Museum, not the National Library, not the Health Ministry — probably did more than anything else to convince Iraqis uneasy with the occupation that the United States was in Iraq only for the oil.") and disbanding the entire Iraqi army, leaving 450,000 unemployed and incomeless ("As one U.S. official remarked to me privately, 'That was the week we made 450,000 enemies on the ground in Iraq.'")

But Bush continues to maintain that everything is going great; as Ted Rall observed, occupiers always convince themselves the local population supports them...