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For suggesting that what had gone wrong in Iraq was an accumulation of “tactical mistakes” rather than more strategic errors. While it was clear the Rice meant to assert that the fundamental thrust of U.S. policy in removing Saddam from power was correct, she seemed to put the blame exactly where it didn’t belong — on people in uniform. But more than a simple gaffe, it obfuscates the core failing of the Bush Administration: the inability to link military means to strategic ends, to do the “how-to” job of strategy-making.