Some experts doubt that the smaller deployment would be sufficient to halt Iraq's escalating civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Some experts? Some? Find me a single non-neocon, non-member of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders who thinks this will do anything other than further enrich the target rich environment that is Iraq. At absolute best it means they'll be busy blowing up our guys more than each other for a little longer.

Iraq is turning into an utter bloodbath and a place that will be destabilizing the Middle East for years. Calling this a blunder is wrong. As we've found out, there were people inside State and DoD who studied this and put out a huge report about what would be needed that was not just ignored but deliberately buried. This isn't going to be like Vietnam. Try Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, whole orders of magnitude worse.