INDIANAPOLIS — The Bush administration failed to prepare well for the war in Iraq and ‘lost a lot of lives’ as a result, an Iraq war correspondent told a gathering of open-government advocates Saturday. Sig Christenson, a military writer for the San Antonio Express-News who has been to Iraq three times, said many reporters who have been there are ‘conflicted’ in their feelings about the war because they have the opportunity to cover ‘an extraordinarily historic moment’ but one that they contend was poorly planned. ‘A lot of people like me believe the president and his men did a really bad job leading up to this war,’ said Christenson, speaking at the Saturday lunch of the national Freedom of Information Conference. ‘They didn’t do their homework and lost a lot of lives. ‘`It’s a tough thing to say because you want to think of your leadership as competent and prepared. But it seems like they went into this war with a lot of wishful thinking.’ Christenson was embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and he reported on six battles. He has returned twice to Baghdad. He is […]