The Gulf War was the best managed war in history, from a PR perspective. Interestingly, though an unknown number of Iraqis were killed, buried in trenches and bombed, mostly, no images escaped to US television. At the same time, many US 'smart weapons' appear to have been virtually worthless despite wartime claims of A+ accuracy.
This article also brings to mind an account in the latest Harper's by a Gulf verteran Marine sniper who describes a complete clusterfuck as far as coordination and organization go, resulting in friendly fire casualties, which the military naturally minimized (i.e. lied about).

Bodies? What Bodies?

The FAA, NORAD and the military have cooperative procedures by which fighter jets automatically intercept commercial aircraft under emergency conditions. These procedures were not followed.
...
U.S. air safety and air defense emergency systems are activated in response to problems every day. On 9-11 they failed despite, not because of, the extreme nature of the emergency. This could only happen if individuals in high positions worked in a coordinated way to make them fail.

GUILTY FOR 9-11: BUSH, RUMSFELD, MYERS