Not to take a thing away from our troops in the field, but that relatively easy roll up to Baghdad and the later conquest of the capital was largely a result of Saddam’s unprepared and undersupplied forces.
Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat – New York Times:
¶ The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation’s defense.
¶ He put a general widely viewed as an incompetent drunkard in charge of the Special Republican Guard, entrusted to protect the capital, primarily because he was considered loyal.
¶ Mr. Hussein micromanaged the war, not allowing commanders to move troops without permission from Baghdad and blocking communications among military leaders.The Fedayeen’s operations were not shared with leaders of conventional forces. Republican Guard divisions were not allowed to communicate with sister units. Commanders could not even get precise maps of terrain near the Baghdad airport because that would identify locations of the Iraqi leader’s palaces.
The articles for a good if depressing read: former Sec’y of State Powell’s presentation to the UN was so persuasive that even some Iraqi diplomats wondered if Saddam had been holding out on them. Alas, no, in this case he told the truth: our leaders have yet to face that challenge.