Looks like the "bombshell" that the Busn administration failed to adequately prepare for post-war Iraq may be re-exploding.
A little more than a year ago, the AP reported:
An independent panel headed by two former U.S. national security advisers said Wednesday that chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate postwar planning.
Must have been a panel convened to examine the blatantly obvious...(more below)
At this point, I have lost count of the number of former government and military officials from all political persuasions who have stepped forward to condemn the almost criminally incompetent manner with which this administration has handled post-war Iraq. I think the number roughly corresponds with the number of
promotions awarded,
medals conferred and
accolades bestowed by the President upon those responsible for this unceasing disaster.
But maybe now that we have it straight from the man himself, though, this travesty will get the attention it deserves. As Darksyde noted earlier today:
Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq ...In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.
And there you have it. Not only are these guys incompetent, but they aggressively take pains to screw things up.
Snark aside, though, assuming this story is true, I don't buy that the decision was borne simply out of politics or incompetence.
Even if it was felt by the administration that they couldn't sell a long war to the public, or that there was no need for post war planning because the Iraqis would handle it on their own with oil revenues or something like that, it seems strange to absolutely prohibit any post-war planning. I mean, it never hurts to have a back-up plan, right? And certainly, it could have been done in secret and not jeopardized the administration's bogus line about what a quick and tidy war this would be.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that the only reason to prohibit post-war planning would be that we simply planned not to be around once the "war" was over. I hope this is not true. It is hard to imagine the level of incompetence, naivetee and lack of compassion necessary to make such a plan, but there has to be some reason why a post-war plan would deliberately not be created.