Richard Perle, a top Iraq advisor in 2002 and 2003 – when he headed the Defense Advisory Board (Secretary Rumsfeld’s top advisory committee) – made this prediction one year ago today:
The problems in Iraq are ahead of us, but we’re doing better than people think. And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation. Thanks.
[Applause.]