I am certain there have been mistakes throughout each and every war the U.S. has fought, there were even friendly fire deaths and untold civilian deaths in the nearly flawless (as flawless as any way could be) Gulf War of '91.
It's not a question of everything haven gone right, it's a question of accountability.
This President, his administration and many of the loyalist Bushies who helped re-elect him in 2004, didn't want to hold them accountable for these mistakes. So much so, that they continued down this path after the writing was on the wall.
It's not a matter of conceding that bloody pointless battles (like arguably Okinawa, which happened to be a war justified by all sane counts) were mistakes, when the bigger picture was a success. It's having the accountability to stand up and admit incompetence.
The alternative proposed by the opposition to the President was to abandon Iraq starting immediately with NO pre-conditions. While mistakes were made in policy after Saddam was removed, the policy was still vastly superior to what the opposition was proposing.
Relative to the more bloody and costly mistakes of Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, LBJ, Nixon, just how exactly should the current president "be held accountable"?
From the rationale for the war, to disbanding the Iraqi guard to Abu Ghraib, this laundry list is a mile long and yet NEVER did they change course until the '06 elections went against them . THAT IS A FACT.
I have yet to see anyone successfully defend the idea that the security of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf would somehow be better off if Saddam were left in power. There are serious reasons why Saddam had to be removed. Saddam's violations were more than enough to justify his removal, especially given the fact that the United States had tried everything short of war from 1991 to 2003 to successfully resolve the problem. Ultimately, the only thing that actually did work and finally enforced the resolutions was Saddam's removal.
The idea that the administration did not change any of their policies or plans as the situation changed on the ground in Iraq, or until the Democrats gained control of congress, is false. While the most significant changes came with the surge, the planning for that phase started in the middle of 2006, BEFORE the November 2006 elections.
And to answer your question about what the casualty level would have been, had some of these grave mistakes been righted, either sooner or before the fact (not existed at all) any objective person would claim that it would be certainly less than what it was, across the board.
One could say the same thing about the more bloody and costly mistakes of Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, LBJ, and Nixon.
The loyalists as yourself are dwindling by the day.
Actually their increasing as the casualties drop in Iraq and the overall situation improves. That leaves loyalist opposed to the removal of Saddam defending the idea the the region would be better off with Saddam in power today.
I think Bush has taken small steps towards his Mea Culpa.
Like what Bush said today?
"In a world where terrorists armed with box cutters had just killed nearly 3,000 people, America had to decide whether we could tolerate a sworn enemy that acted belligerently, that supported terror and that intelligence agencies around the world believed had weapons of mass destruction,"
"It was clear to me, it was clear to members of both political parties, and to many leaders around the world that after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take,"
With all due respect, you continue to be deluded.
The only people who are deluded are those who can't detach themselves from the presidential politics that surrounds the issue and look at the issue objectively from the interest of the United States and the world as well as understanding the history of the region, Saddam, and the details of what actually occured prior to George Bush coming to office and understanding why the Persian Gulf has been so vital to US and global security for decades, and how and why Saddam threatened that, not just in 2003, but for much of his time in power.