By recalling Ambassador L. Paul (Jerry) Bremer from Baghdad two days early on June 28, the Bush administration could claim it had met at least one element of its ambitious Iraqi reconstruction schedule.
The coalition was wrong on so many other countsthe number of Iraqis it would employ, the amount of power it could produce, the volume of oil it could export, how many troops it would need. Defeating Saddam Husseins demoralized army, already thoroughly trounced in the Gulf War and prevented from reloading by economic sanctions, proved relatively easy for the strongest military force in history.