Republicans Anonymous

I found this Hoover Institute document while searching for a primary source for Donald Rumsfeld's infamous "Democracy is Messy" statement:

IRAQ:Staying the Course
Kenneth R. Timmerman
...
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld alluded to these critics in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on May 27. The problems in any transition from tyranny to a free and civil society are very real, he noted. They include looting, crime, mobs storming government buildings, the breakdown of government institutions, rampant inflation caused by the lack of a stable currency, and supporters of the former regime roaming the streets and countryside.
...
Ironically, for many of the same reasons that compel the French to prefer dictators, the CIA and the Near East bureau of the State Department have been undermining the emergence of representative government in post-war Iraq by bad-mouthing the only group that could possibly imprint Western values onto Iraqi society, the Iraqi National Congress. In this effort they have been joined by the foreign news editors of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, though not their editorial pages.
...
As the liberators of Iraq and the Iraqi people, the United States and Great Britain have responsibilities. Foremost among them is to make the peace succeed and to help Iraqis build a new form of representative government. But to do so, we must stay the course charted by the president and empower the leadership council of the Iraqi Interim Authority as it restores order, restores confidence, and prepares the way for the creation of new representative institutions in Iraq...
(Source: Hoover Digest 2003 - No. 3 - Summer Edition)

Wow - this whole mess was caused by folks bad-mouthing Ahmed Chalabi and the widely respected Iraqi national Congress. Fortunately, we did follow W's plan, expertly carried out by his Bush League minions, and today Iraq is a peaceful, thriving democracy:

Iraqi woman MP killed in Baghdad
Police said gunmen knocked at her door and shot her when she answered.

The attack came as the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Richard Myers, warned that Iraqi militants remain as strong as a year ago.
(Source: BBC News)

But at least the reconstruction effort went well without interference from those treacherous French types:

Iraq blighted by poor services

By Caroline Hawley
BBC News, Baghdad

Two years since the fall of Baghdad, there is deep frustration among Iraqis at the state of public services.

There are continuing power cuts in much of the country and hospitals struggle to provide adequate treatment.

Sewage often pours untreated into rivers which many Iraqis have to drink from.
...
Statistics are hard to come by, but one official told the BBC that more than one in 10 babies born here will die before they are five.
(Source: BBC News)

Iraq must have a democracy - drinking sewage-contaminated water is pretty messed up. However, I'm sure the rest of the Mid East hopes they can get to live with car bombs, no public services, and a 10% child mortality rate, too.