Michael A. Newton, LLM Biography

"To close observers, it soon became clear that pre-invasion assumptions about the ease with which Iraq could suddenly become an island of prosperity and peace by transitioning into institutionalized norms of democratic governance had melted like ice in the withering summer heat. The Bush administration had pointedly decided early on that the U.S. military should not be in the business of 'nation building.' American planners had spent the most time on what turned out to be the least difficult task- defeating the Iraqi army. Very little planning had been devoted to the most daunting challenge- building a new democratic Iraq in the face of a mounting insurgency. The paradox of prewar planning was that there were far too few U.S. forces to secure and protect the hundreds of suspected weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sites, much less to prevent WMDs from being smuggled out of Iraq or being transferred to the terrorist groups; the preemption of such transfers had been one of the very purposes for the war."