Well, given that the invasion of Iraq is well into its fourth year, maybe we can compare the relative consequences of your historical analogies.

Napoleon: Lost, beaten home with tail down. Mislaid 380,000 men, ate the horses.

Hitler: Dead in a ditch, lost 4,300,000 soldiers, and in the wake of the German retreat an astonishing percentage of German women suicided due to the Soviet policy of punitive gang rape across Germany. Lost two generations of German life to totalitarianism in the DDR.

America: Won the invasion, 4,000 dead in four years of police action, attempting to prevent brutal Saudi killers murdering 100,000 civilians, such as women and children who go to market for their food (mass bombings), who let their hair show or wear jeans (tortured, disembowelled and beheaded in areas controlled by Al Quaeda), or go to pray (mosque bombings). Remarkable success, killing almost all of the murderers so that despite four years of recruiting, enemy headcount is now about 5% of its previous heights.

One serious omission of the international military effort was public relations, and the battle on the home front was ceded to people who would rather see the people of Iraq massacred wholesale than peace, because it would validate their sense of moral superiority.

Just to correct the body-count.

Iraq-500 000 dead kids from 1991 because of the US-led embargo, probably 650 000 Iraqi civilians dead and mutilated since the invasion, destruction of a secular but muslim society in which Saudi-type terrorists didn't stand a chance and one that had good literacy and health records before 1991, not to mention highly carcinogenic radioactive dust blowing through southern Iraq since 1991 from the Uranium- tipped shells used for destroying tanks. And it ain't over yet. The Turks are still being allowed to kill Kurds, for which one S. Hussein was hanged. And the Turks have been killing Kurds in Iraq since 1991. And I forget; an estimated 200 000 killed during the "turkey-shoot" of 1991.

P.s. Sorry, I forgot: the enemy dead don't matter! Otherwise you would have had to score Adolf as very successful,as he knocked off 20 000 000 Russians, which is a 5:1 kill ratio in his favour.

The rate of acute malnutrition for Iraqi children under 5 has doubled since the end of major combat operations in Iraq in 2003.

For the last four years the numbers are horrifyingly the same.

George Bush and crew know about it and ignore it.

This is war crime. There is no excuse for the most powerful, richest country in the world to allow this.

Most of the children the US continues to let starve will never fulfill their full possibility as a human physically nor mentally and neither will their children nor grandchildren.

One in ten of the Iraqi people are refugees.

The MEK, hated by all like Hitler's foreign SA, survive because the US guards them from the Kurds, Shia and Iranians. When the Kurds, the Green Zoners and former Sunni insurgents turn on the US, the MEK will fight to the death for the Us because everyone else wants their heads because of their terrorist death squad activities for Saddam

124, there was a scifi novel, published in the 1930's called "ralph 124c41".

did you come across it, or re-invent the acronym?

'stupid' is not the right word. the iraq war was started by some very bright people with some extremely attractive goals in view.

refusal to see the consequences of releasing the constraints saddam placed on iraqi ethnic or religious tensions might be called stupid, but hubris is a better word. the result to date is the revulsion of failure that has dimmed the careers of cheney,wolfowitz and perle.

i think it's too early to say they failed. their personal careers are ruined, but the usa has not left iraq as yet. the next president may inherit a mess he did not make, but he may also inherit bases and treaties giving control over iraqi oil, and military presence to allow direct control of all the middle east. america may yet profit from this,in spite of the carnage. i believe the price has been too high, certainly if human life is a factor, but let's not rejoice over a democrat president just yet.