A 700-page study of the Iraq war and its aftermath by the United States Army released yesterday concludes that the post-war occupation phase of the conflict suffered from under-staffing and from incorrect assumptions by commanders as to just what the Army's role would be.

"Few commanders foresaw that full spectrum operations in Iraq would entail the simultaneous employment of offense, defense, stability, and support operations by units at all echelons of command to defeat new, vicious, and effective enemies.

[The] post-war situation in Iraq was severely out of line with the suppositions made at nearly every level before the war."

That means that the Army was operating in a "liberate and go home" mindset in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad, and expected Iraqis to take control of the country in very short order.

Critics of the Bush Administration's pre-war planning will seize on the report's conclusions as proof that the president led the nation to war without adequate preparations for the aftermath. That charge is necessarily informed by hindsight, however. Everyone agrees that the post-war occupation plan turned out to be insufficient to handle the conditions in the country, but that is not proof that there was no plan.