Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss
New York Times -- January 18, 2000

By ERICA GOODE

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.

The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it," wrote Dr. Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dr. Dunning.

Oil Sabotage Threatens Iraq Economy, Rebuilding
LA Times -- September 18, 2004

Although record-high oil prices have helped compensate for the production decline, industry analysts expect Iraq to bring in far less oil revenue than the $15 billion previously projected for the year.

As a result, U.S. taxpayers may be forced to make up for shortages in revenue that Pentagon officials once promised would cover much of the reconstruction costs.

In an appearance before Congress in March 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said Iraqi oil revenue could bring in as much as $100 billion over two to three years.

The effectiveness of the pipeline attacks also has led to worries that dissidents in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, could copy the strategy. "A simple attack produces a huge impact," said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. "It's cheap, easy and achievable."

With 40% of the world's oil transported by pipelines and global demand at an all-time high, an outbreak of pipeline bombings could have disastrous economic consequences, analysts said. "The world can live with Iraq pumping 2 million barrels per day. The world cannot live with pipelines popping all over the place," Luft said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have been at a loss to determine how to contain the damage.

Iraq's 14,000-man force dedicated to pipeline protection has neither enough people nor equipment to effectively monitor the country's 4,300 miles of pipelines, security experts say.

Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
The Guardian -- Thursday September 16, 2004

Sidney Blumenthal

Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."

[...]

"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."