See, Checklists Can Be Useful

Oops, Bush forgot to ask for a surrender! From TNR:

There may be a simple, overlooked, and incredibly basic reason why the fighting in Iraq refuses to end: Namely, there was never a surrender. Saddam Hussein's government never formally capitulated. Individual Iraqi leaders such as Tariq Aziz turned themselves over to United States forces, but the government itself signed no surrender or even any armistice. Top Iraqi officials either fled or went into hiding. They did not, officially, give up. Nor did Iraq's military officially give up. Some units capitulated to the U.S. or British forces besieging them. The Iraqi Army's 51st Division surrendered to British forces near Basra early in the fighting; commanders of the Iraq Army's Fifth Corps signed a cease-fire with U.S. commanders near Mosul in mid-April 2003. But other Iraqi units never formally gave in; soldiers simply left and returned home, either after Baghdad fell or when Iraq's army was ordered disbanded. More important, the Iraqi general staff never signed any overall surrender or truce. The lack of an admission of defeat may seem a formality, and has been treated as a formality by Washington and London. But the absence of a surrender--which, after all, means "we agree to stop fighting"--may be yet another in the succession of errors confounding the occupation of Iraq. The Pentagon and CIA quietly asked top Iraqi military leaders to surrender before the 2003 invasion, hoping Saddam could be toppled and combat made unnecessary. And while heavy combat was still ongoing in early April 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States would accept from Iraq only unconditional surrender, what Germany and Japan gave to conclude World War II. Once Iraq's cities had fallen, organized military resistance had ceased, and Saddam and other top leaders had stolen off, talk of surrender was tabled. Rumsfeld declared a formal surrender unworkable because Saddam's followers were "unlike traditional adversaries we have faced in past wars." The United States and United Kingdom "owned" Iraq, and that seemed to be all that mattered. It was not. First comes defeat, and then surrender; surrenders are essential to the cessation of war. You can't just beat your opponent: You must make your opponent say, "I am beaten." ....