John McCain: serious mistakes made in war planning for Iraq

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Sen. John McCain said the following:

"[W]e made serious mistakes right after the initial successes by not having enough troops there on the ground, by allowing the looting, by not securing the borders. There was a number of things that we did. Most of it can be traced back to not having sufficient numbers of troops there.

But let me emphasize, things always go badly in wars. That's one of the reasons why we try to avoid them. The key is to correct our mistakes.

In the Fallujah issue, our general in Baghdad said we were going to go in and capture or kill those who were responsible for the deaths of Americans. And we went in, and then we pulled out.

As Napoleon said, if you say you're going to take Vienna, you take Vienna.

And so, we, by allowing these sanctuaries — and Fallujah isn't the only one; there's a number of them particularly in the Sunni triangle — then they were able to establish bases where they can equip, train and harbor people who are coming across the border from Syria and others contributing to this very serious challenge that we face."