Personally, I thought that the air war would last for several weeks, but that the ground war would be over in a matter of days (basically, I thought that they would fight this war like Desert Storm).
I did predict a short and not-very-bloody (well, for the Allies, at least) war, and that the “real problems would come after the invasion”. But I must admit I though the “real problems” would be handing over the reins of power to dudes unused to Democracy, not this continued Guerrila war. Oh, well- 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. 
Sam Stone summarized the results of the predictions in his thread (it’s towards the bottom). He left off vague predictions, and even some were hedged in a manner that the participants maight take issue with his summation.
Still, it seems that both sides only slightly overestimated US casualties and the length of the “proper” war. Others estimated a lengthy and bloody occupation.
FTR, here’s my responses to the relevant questions in that thread:
In retrospect, I thought the war would be a bit bloodier, and, of course, I was dead wrong on the air war. Still, I wasn’t too far off, and my dire predictions for the occupation and post-war war, will still too soon to call, seem to be in line with current events.
Nope, not playing Krauthammer’s self-indulgent little game here. He’s plainly trying to let himself off the hook for having been fooled by telling himself that everyone was fooled. The game is a coping mechanism for him, and anyone who plays it is enabling him - and the segment of the populace who similarly has trouble admitting having been fooled (board’s been a little quiet lately, hasn’t it?).
But FTR, things are happening pretty much as I’d expected, although it’ll have to be a few more years to be sure. The only ones who have to reconsider are those who were selling us visions of peace, harmony, and American-style democracy and capitalism breaking out over the entire Middle East within months of the simple ouster of Saddam, just like music and colors returning to Pepperland after the Beatles bonked the Blue Meanies. Krauthammer was one of that group, of course.
Yeah, what he said. I get enough Krauthammer in my weekly copy of Time, and while he was fairly level-headed before, nowadays he’s making a beeline for the right-wing loony special. Give him another three months and he’ll be Brutus with a better vocabulary.
Anyway, I can’t remember exactly what I predicted about the war, and I’m too lazy to look, but I’m fairly confident that I predicted the US would steamroll over the Iraqi army. I know I didn’t predict how Bush’s excuses for war would fall apart so soon afterwards, though.
Well I disagree with your…ugh, never mind.
That’s simply not true. There is absolutely nothing in the cited quote about the relative statistical chances of either scenario. His point was that all scenarios should be considered. He makes no predictions as to which scenario is more or less likely.
Yes, in light of what actually happened, it seems quite silly. And had that been your only point, I wouldn’t have said anything. I’m not disagreeing with your point, just pointing out that you overstated it. You didn’t say he came up with an overblown worst case scenario, you said he was “screaming about how we were going to lose” that many troops. Do you understand the difference between:
“We MIGHT lose a few hundred troops, or we MIGHT lose 50-100,000 troops”
and
“We ARE GOING TO lose 50-100,000 troops”?
Could be, but you’ll notice that I said “based on the link you provided”. And even if his worst-case scenario WERE higher than what you originally posted, it’s still a mischaracterization that he said we ARE GOING TO lose that many troops.
Well, I thought the war would take longer than 3 weeks. I figured two to three months, but then I imagined we’d be doing it conventionally which would be basically fighting the whole way and securing our lines each step of the way.
What we actually did was a Blitzkrieg. We just charged straight into the heart and destroyed organized resistance and C&C, taking the country basically intact.
This tactic produced a very short war which was light on casualties comparatively speaking.
The trade off is that we have a bigger mopping up job to do.
It is my hope that the coming months will show the actions against American soldiers in recent weeks will mark the end of this mopping up period.
It is my fear that we may face something like a protracted organized resistance that may grow and intensify.
Thanks, all, for the link to the Middle East Predictions thread. It’s not as useful as I’d hoped; it’s missing a lot of the people one would hope to find there, including me. I can only hazard the WAG that I mentally associated “Middle East” with “Israel/Palestine” and skipped on past. I suspect that if it had been titled “The Iraq War Prediction Thread” it might have done somewhat better. Such is life.
Seems that some of us don’t agree on Krauthammer. Maybe we need a couple of threads like, “Liberals, which conservative columnists do you find worth reading?” and “Conservatives, which liberal columnists…” but let’s try that on another day.
Concerning Gary Hart, I suppose it’s possible that a couple hundred people, scattered across America, were taking him seriously. But whatever he may have said, it’s not an indication of widespread belief in any position by anybody.
Well, I did not explicitly say “short war followed by interminable problems”, but I did say “short war” and expressed doubt that the Bush Administration knew how to wage the peace in the Yippe kai yai yea, we are goin to war! thread.
Everything happened precisely as I anticipated. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.