I don't take a dump unless I have a plan

In a recent press release US President Bush has informed us that US troops will stay until the job is done.
Now when it came to invading I was not a supporter but now the coalition is in Iraq we cannot just walk away. And at least now he seems to be having an actual plan. This "plan" does seem to be sketchy but at least one exists.

When I think about the conflict in Iraq I look at previous wars, in particular the Second World War.
Why the second? In this war the allies knew what their plan was, to defeat Germany, but also what they were going to do after. First remove Hitler from power then occupy Germany as a whole, expunge all traces of the Nazi party. But there was one difference about WW2 that does separate it from modern conflicts. They had a plan of what they were going to do after the war was won; it was called the Marshall plan named after the general who created it. The plan was to rebuild Europe by restarting its economy and to rebuild Germany and prevent any allied claims to German assets. This was to prevent the same events occurring which led to WW2 oddly enough it was the failure to deal with the First world war that led to the second, like the first gulf war led to the current conflict.

But this current conflict is different from WW2 for one thing there is no defined battlefield, and no set victory conditions.
We know what we would like the outcome to be, but do not know the way to get there. This costs the US $6 billion a month.
And this is what concerns me the most, the running of this conflict seems ad hoc at best, the militaries are of course reasonably well run with a core of discipline. Politicians are its weakness unable to put through a long-term defined plan of action. Things are run on a reactionary basis, they never take the initiative, and only follow things if they are in the public eye. And in many cases seem more worried about the money they will make from it.
This is not the way to run any war.

Lets look at our enemy they are well run they know the course of action they are going to take, the leaders and the troops are of one kind, they do not react, they take the initative.
They know the weakness of our politicians, and how to play them. For example Spain and Italy, when terrible things happened they were too quick to back down (appeasement does not work WW2 again)
It should be said I do not think the terrorists can win this is not Vietnam, the insurgents in Iraq are not trying to make a country whole, and beyond defeating the coalition have no real plans afterwards.
But this is a weakness we should be exploiting, our ability to plan is better than theirs. But unless we start thinking this conflict will run on an on.

(4/12/05)
As an addition to this if you check out the military recruiter link there is a good post about what has been done in iraq.
And offers a different perspective.