Humans being what they are, admissions of error are rare events. My own concession a while back that I had been overly pessimistic about the military phase of the Iraq war was sufficiently unusual to earn a para in the Bulletin from Tim Blair.
So it’s headline news that, after a long debate, Catallaxy blogger Jack Strocchi has come to the conclusion that he overestimated the benefits of the war and underestimated the costs, saying “The US invasion and occupation of Iraq can now be considered a failure”. His lengthy, closely argued and densely hyperlinked post on the subject is vintage Strocchi and may well be the best he’s ever done.
One or two swallows don’t make a summer. But it would be nice if the kind of debate that prevails, at least in this corner of Ozplogistan (continuous interaction, with civilised norms of debate and easily searchable records of who said what), prompted a greater willingness to admit error.
John Quiggin 
My “mea errata” stands as a formal Act of Contrition.
Some more substantive Pentitential performace is required to atone for Culpability.
I don’t have a lazy $500 bill, but I can promise some serious Apostatic denuciations of the Rogue Party, and all their Diabolical Works.
We are all wrong sometimes that it why we are human.
At least you are interesting when you are wrong.
Moreover you have the good grace to admit it!
Do you have the ego to be a blogger?
If anyone or Anything ever gets Tim Blair to admit he was wrong…
Actually, news:sci.econ had a realistic sorting out of people’s positions without too much bad feeling. One Jim Blair [sic] countered what he thought people like me had said about the risks of attacking Iraq by pointing out that nothing actually had gone wrong. He graciously accepted my clarification that I had not stated there would be a disaster and a bogging down, but rather that the equipment and logistics were highly vulnerable – that I was not worried that there necessarily would be a problem, but concerned whether the USA would make a mess going in because it would leave them up a gum tree. For instance Abrams tanks etc. are vulnerable to the elements, so the USA really was betting the farm. So the issue for me was whether the generals kept clear of the real possibilities of disaster, not whether a disaster was in the cards in the first place. Luckily, today’s generation of generals really are competent and avoided the mess.
If outside events do leave the garrisons cut off, that would return. I presume there are all sorts of plans in place and being implemented to secure their position and communications, that are carefully not being publicised. This was always a war that the USA could lose, not one the Iraqis could win, and careful critics never overstated the military objections.