That's what you get when you have a bunch of ex-corporate execs who are more
worried about their bottom line and the profit margin of their cronies than
civilians or soldiers.
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Knight Ridder Report Reveals Poor Planning for Occupation of Iraq
By E&P Staff
Published: October 16, 2004 10:00 PM EDT
NEW YORK Knight Ridder's Washington bureau, which in the past two years has
produced a string of important exclusives related to the Iraq war (and
pre-war), offered evidence today about poor or "non-existent" planning for
the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as well as the failure to provide 100,000 more
troops military commanders had wanted.
The article carries the byline of Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott but was
also reported by Joseph Galloway and Jonathan Landay. It was based on
official documents and on interviews with more than three dozen current and
former military and civilian officials who participated directly in planning
for the war and its aftermath.
Some senior officials spoke about their concerns for the first time, the
story said.
"A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions
has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to
secure and rebuild the country," the article declares.
"The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S.
troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore
order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and
economic sanctions. In fact, some senior Pentagon officials had thought they
could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003.
Instead, more than a year later, 138,000 U.S. troops are still fighting...."
The authors quote a veteran State Department officer who was directly
involved in Iraq policy saying, "We didn't go in with a plan. We went in
with a theory."
"We've finally got our act together, but we're all afraid it may be too
late," commented one senior official still engaged daily in Iraq policy.
The Bush administration's failure to plan to win the peace was the product
of many of the same problems that plagued the administration's case for war,
the KR report continues, "including wishful thinking, bad information from
Iraqi exiles who said Iraqis would welcome American troops as liberators and
contempt for dissenting opinions.
However, the administration's planning for postwar Iraq differed in one
crucial respect from its erroneous pre-war claims: "The U.S. intelligence
community had been divided about the state of Saddam's weapons programs, but
there was little disagreement among experts throughout the government that
winning the peace in Iraq could be much harder than winning a war.
"A half-dozen intelligence reports warned that American troops could face
significant postwar resistance. This foot-high stack of material was
distributed at White House meetings of Bush's top foreign policy advisers,
but there's no evidence that anyone ever acted on it. 'It was disseminated.
And ignored,' said a former senior intelligence official."
The KR story features this anecdote up top: "In March 2003, days before the
start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and
intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to
review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant
democracy in Iraq. Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant
colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's
plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as
Phase 4-C.
"He was uncomfortable with his material, and for good reason. The slide
said: 'To Be Provided.'
In an interesting sidelight, the article notes that every effort was made to
get those who were interviewed to speak for the record, "but many officials
requested anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the administration
publicly or because they feared retaliation. One official who was deeply
involved in the pre-war planning effort, and was critical of it, initially
agreed but then declined to cooperate after expressing concern that the
Justice Department might pursue a reporter's telephone records in an effort
to hunt down critics of the administration's policies."
http://tinyurl.com/72xlk
(http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000673212)
--
"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory
after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would
have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there,
and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of
the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered
American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on."
- Norman Schwarzkopf, from his 1993 autobiography, "It Doesn't
Take a Hero."
--
They Knew...
Despite the whitewash, we now know that the Bush administration was warned
before the war that its Iraq claims were weak
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/they_knew_0802/
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