according to this washington post story the former administrator in iraq said: "We paid a big price for not stopping it [looting] because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness"
i would have been all for aggressive enforcement, looters ought to be shot. but can you imagine the outcry, when us soldiers kill looters? the theme would go something like this "oh, these poor people are driven to that out of desperation. they only want to feed their families, it is not right to punish them for that, they are merely trying to survive. they posed no threat to the soldiers and the soldiers murdered them..."

also bremer said: "We never had enough troops on the ground."
well mr. bremer, you were the one in charge until alawi took over, what did you do about it? you would just have to have asked for more troops and you would in all likelyhood have gotten them, but you did not.