The Way-back Machine

James Taranto noticed:

Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein's, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after--or, more accurately, the decade after--Saddam Hussein.

Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill. . . . Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment.
-Dec. 20, 2002
Sen. Joe Biden and
Sen. Chuck Hagel
OpEd in the Washington Post

"President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment." Apparently senators need to be reminded as well.