So why did they stay?

Very disturbing. Why don't we head down to the white house and demand these guys step down?

"And this also means that all of Bush's talk about democracy was nothing but hot air. If you're serious about planting democracy after a war, you don't plan to simply topple a government and then leave."

I don't think this is right. If you believe in the Neoconservative world view of the teleological inevitability of democracy, then maybe if you do lop off a government and the Americans are seen as liberators, it will allow democracy to flower without a long term commitment.

It's not that they didn't plan for it, it's that politics and ideology blinded them from seeing that they had to plan for it.

Bush simply never understood the consequences of starting a war. In Plan of Attach Woodward makes it clear that this is what Colin Powell believed all along.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you. Bush and Rummy less that serious about planting democracy. Shocked and awed. :0

Actually there is another explanation. Remember Rummy's hard on to discredit the Powell doctrine. Our glorious secretary of defense had a theory about using the minimum number of well equipped high tech war fighters to defeat an enemy army.

Post war planning would require that he jack up the force requirement dramatically by including a lot of occupation troops.

He didn't like that. Too many troops to undo the Powell doctrine.

As to post invasion troops--didn't the Neocons have the absurd idea that newly free Iraqis were going to make Chalibi their new leader.

This is the essence of Bush/Rebublican malfeasance and negligence with regard to our troops in Iraq. They send the troops in, call on them to sacrifice, but can't be bothered to do the work to ensure the troops' efforts will produce fruitful results in the longer run.

Now the Republicans have our military's leg caught in the trap of Iraq, and our soldier's lives and limbs are being spent with no assurance that a sound outcome is in prospect. The civilians in Washington have done nothing to support, and much to undermine, our troops in Iraq.

Are the Republicans with us or against us?

I wonder if the MSM has these reactions to a story like this.

1) Well, someone else already wrote about it.
2) We believe everyone knows this anyway so why
report it and get beat up by the White House and
Republicans.

Bush simply never understood the consequences of starting a war. In Plan of Attach Woodward makes it clear that this is what Colin Powell believed all along.

As you sort of say, Kevin, this was obvious from the get-go. "Democracy" was going to consist of slapping a presidential cape on Chalabi's shoulders (like Karzai's cape-- so impressive) and letting our remaining troops get on with the business of building half a dozen or so permanent bases out in the desert.

Why did they stay? I think it's because there was no functioning state for Chalabi to run. No bureaucrats showed up for work. Then all that looting caught them by surprise, then for some reason they got cold feet about Chalabi, then they had to send in their own viceroys to see what was what, then Bremer dissolved the army, and it went downhill from there.

IMHO the biggest thing is that Rumsfeld was so effing blindly literal about his instructions. "Post-invasion" was anything after the surrender. There was supposed to be a big surrender by some general. But it didn't happen. So then the looting happened. Etc.

Like The Mouse That Roared, a giant Grand Fenwick.

I mean a giant Grand Fenwick of the Rumsfeld mind.

So why did they stay?

Because they didn't win. And everyone knew it.

The bulk of the evidence continues to suggest that democracy and rebuilding were simply not on Bush's radar.

Bush has no working radar. He got gut feel. Blind as a bat.

So, is Doug Feith still the stupidest fucking man on earth? Or does Rummy leapfrog into #1 by seriously believing that plans for the post-invasion environment need not - indeed, must not - be made?

In Assassin's Gate, and other sources, it's made clear, as some others have said, that Bush et al believed that if they removed Saddam by force -- decapitated the regime -- the government would instantly and easily convert to a democracy. It's what they were told by people like Ahmed Chalabi, who we presume wanted to head that government (if he wasn't actually an Iranian spy) and by people like Kanan Makiya, who seems, God help him, to really have believed that.

That they never questioned that assumption -- that they never stopped and said, okay, exactly how does a calcified police state instantly turn into a democracy, run by all the same people... well, it doesn't surprise, anymore.

I personally have a theory, as to why they believed that Iraq, unlike every other Middle Eastern government, or non-Western government, would immediately and easily shift to liberal democracy, just add water, poof, rather than revert to vicious tribal factional infighting:

It's because Iraqis wore ties.

Seriously.

If the Iraqi elites under Saddam had appeared on CNN, wearing Saudi style robes and kaffiyeh, this never would have happened.

This explains why Afghanistan is in such a mess, too.

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld absolutely were planning on rebuilding Iraq-- but they were planning on doing it with big business contracts, never the military. They really DID think that the military could just get out, and that American businesses/Halliburton could immediately step in and rebuild. Utterly foolish of course, but it's a mistake to think that just because Rumsfeld didn't want the military to plan for the aftermath, that they didn't plan on rebuilding.

Naomi Klein's 2004 article "Baghdad Year Zero" from Harper's Magazine still rings largely true to me.

Ulysses

Thomas Friedbrain, are you listening?

"Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics."

So we know which group Rumsfeld belongs to.

Are we still debating the motivating factors behind this national debacle that should never have happened? How many times do we have to point out Bush's infantile tendencies and his apparent deep-seated need to compare the size of his genitals with those of his father, over and over again?

The United States of America went to war over some spolied rich kid's unresolve Oedipal complex.

Sick thought, isn't it?

These guys have no shame.
If we made a docudrama about Bush's two terms, we wouldn't have to make up a single thing in order to make Bush look like a total moron.
America's Least Wanted

Kevin: The plan was to remove Saddam from power, claim victory, and get out.

Man, how many years before the obvious is just stated as fact instead of a partisan opinion?

It could also be that the Bush Administration had planned it as a corporate occupation rather than a military one from the get-go.

Military invasion. Corporate occupation. The public ever even has to know the administration plans to drain the treasury into reconstruction projects and privately owned security forces.

Call me Lefty, but it seems to me what Rumsfeld was saying back then (i.e. before the war) is that the people must not know that the Bush administration is planning to stay in Iraq for decades because if they do, they won't support the war.

I completely agree with Castillo above but I would like to paraphase it into one word: OIL! I continue to believe that if Iraq's cash crop was broccoli Bush would not go into Iraq even if Hussein threatened to kill his father, brother, childern and mother. He is one f*'d up dude.

Folks it is pretty obvious that there were (are) no responsible adults in positions of power and authority in the Bush administration. Only a complete idiot wouldn't at least do contingency planning.

Next topic. This is just too sad and too obvious for much further consideration. Not even the trolls are seriously defending the administration in this thread.

Man, how many years before the obvious is just stated as fact instead of a partisan opinion?

Based on the current blossoming of epiphanies we're seeing on the Right -- I'm guessing about 6.5 Friedmans.

(Of course this figure is heavily influenced by such factors as the number of orange alerts prior to but not after a presidential election, as well as the number of people shot by Dick Cheney in the face per two Friedmans).

The bulk of the evidence continues to suggest that democracy and rebuilding were simply not on Bush's radar.

That doesn't mean that staying forever wasn't on their radar, does it?

The bulk of the evidence suggests that they wanted to create plausible deniability for when the shit hit the fan. It was more important to have no incriminating plan that belied their prewar cost estimates than it was to succeed at occupation.

In the next installment, Kevin Drum will somehow try to weave the "permanent Halliburton bases" meme into this post. It only seems contradictory, but he'll make it work.

== Headline Generator ==

Ahhh ... 18 pages and our first troll shows up at last.

I'd ask "what too you so long," but it's pretty painfully apparent.

Bob

They thought they could sell it to external companies who could rule it as feudal fiefdoms, it was to be a victory of globalized corporate feudalism, but, I'm sure the oil companies who put them up to it knew it wouldn't work. They simply wanted chaos.

why would any sane intelligent person ever give the notion of bush having the slightest interest in bringing democracy to Iraq as part of the reason for invsaion a second's consideration. Such a notion is just plain stupid.
.

"And this also means that all of Bush's talk about democracy was nothing but hot air. If you're serious about planting democracy after a war, you don't plan to simply topple a government and then leave."

The whole concept of doing this for democracy was itself a post hoc concoction as it started to become obvious that Iraq had no WMD and the connections to al Qaeda were debunked. Democracy was the fallback justification.
And just so we don't get too careless when throwing around terms like democracy, the Bush administration and the neocons haven't the slightest interest even in promoting democracy in the United States, let alone the Middle East or the rest of the world. They took office in a subversion of democracy and have governed with nothing but contempt for the democratic system of checks and balances and for civil rights ever since. The neocons and the religious right, which are what's left of Bush's base, would LOVE to see democracy end in America and replaced by a plutocratic theocracy. The idea that they were ever interested in establishing anything but a puppet state in Iraq is ridiculous.

They were not such fools as to think they'd wham-bam-thank-you-maam their way in and out of Iraq. The reason they couldn't allow the Pentagon to plan for an extended occupation because it would have completely undercut their PR campaign to sell the invasion of Iraq to Joe Public.

It's the same reason an ad for a printer doesn't tell you the cartridges are $30.

Rumsfeld's speeches to Iraqis and Americans for April and May of 2003 are on this site.

I haven't found any yet that implied that the U.S. wasn't going to be there as long as it took, and building a new democratic government is mentioned in almost all of them. Just pointing it out.

...is that Rumsfeld and Bush were planning to stay but simply lied about it in order to build support for the war. ....

Obviously, that was an important consideration for them. Look at all the other lies, intended to do nothing other than build support for the war.

Of course democracy promotion and reconstruction weren't on the radar. The only things that were on the radar were war-profiteering, and manipulating oil prices.

I've been saying this for 3 years. I still have to say "fucking DUH!"

Why are you all so fucking dense?

I also noticed that the Shinseki Myth is still floating around. What does it take to kill these memes?

"Plan of Attach"

I have to say that's the most felicitous typo I've seen in msny a day.

Yoo hoo, trolls? Anyone out there? Still waiting for your talking points? Getting ready for the swift-boating of Gen. Scheid?
Verrrry disappointing....
Trolls. Never around when you need one.

"many".
oy.

Whichever way you cut it, these guys have recklessly endangered the members of our armed forces, all US citizens, and the Iraqi populace.

Whether they really believed they could just turn around and march the army back out, or they knew they were staying for years, either way, any which way, they did not plan the exit or have contingency plans post the inevitable fall of Saddam. This is incredible. They tossed away the State Department's book, also. After the looting, Bremer further destabilized the country by dismissing all Ba'athists and the Iraqi army.

They lied to this country at every level. They have maimed, killed and psychologically damaged innumerable people not for anything that they understood themselves to be fighting for or against, but on the whim of small men with small minds.

They are undoubtedly criminals.

One additional thought: If I had been P.M. Blair, I would have asked how my troops were going to be used and what the plan was for post fall of Saddam. What did they tell him and his advisors? "Don't worry, we've got that covered."

...then for some reason they got cold feet about Chalabi,...

Because they suddenly realized that the embezzler, money launderer, counterfieter, accessory to murder, was also an Iranian spy who successfully conned the worlds greatest superpower into handing over one of the most oil-rich nations in the world to Iran?

Grand Square in Baghdad named after George Bush?
Screw that noise. How about a Grand Square in downtown Tehran named after Ahmed Chalabi?

Ha ha, this is absolutely priceless...

In 2001, Scheid was a colonel with the Central Command, the unit that oversees U.S. military operations in the Mideast.

On Sept. 10, 2001, he was selected to be the chief of logistics war plans.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he said, "life just went to hell."

That day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, told his planners, including Scheid, to "get ready to go to war."

A day or two later, Rumsfeld was "telling us we were going to war in Afghanistan and to start building the war plan. We were going to go fast.

"Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan ... Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq."

Jesus F Christ, let's all not connect the dots at once.

"It only seems contradictory, but he'll make it work."

Actually, it doesn't even seem contradictory, nor is it. The two concepts are not even remotely mutually exclusive, nor are they even necessarily related.

Of course Rumsfeld had to very cleverly use Psy Ops tactics, because of the traitorous liberals (like the Brigadier General) in our midst, who will stop at nothing to ensure the terrorists win, so as to embarrass Bush, whom the liberals hate with an irrational burning rage that drives them lie awake all night obsessively mumbling about Plame, Ken Lay, Halliburton, and "the next Watergate".

Rumsfeld succeeded in quelling the unamerican whiny shrill liberal concerns, so that, at least during the run up to the war, the Liberal Media was so confused and disorganized, they couldn't mount an effective propaganda campaign to stop George Bush from saving America from the terrorist threat, and the evil infestation of liberals in her midst.

History will look back on these times as Americas darkest moments, and how George W Bush not only defeated the terrorists, but almost single-handedly won the Second Great American Civil War by bamboozling the godless liberals so they couldn't tie his hands and keep him from winning the War On Terror.

History will also look at 9/11 as a masterful PsyOp against American Liberals - to protect them from their own mamby-pamby whining, and desire to cut defense spending and tax cuts until America becomes weaker than Sweden! George Bush's plan to set demolition charges in the twin towers was pure genius, and History will remember how George W Bush united this great nation to help defeat the twin threats of Islamofascists, and Librafascists.

Also, in the annals of homosexual romance, George W Bush's BDSM love affair with Muhammad Awad bin Laden will be listed among the greatest conquests in history, as bin Laden's skill with the cat'o'nine-tails seduced George W Bush, and his lust for a proper thrashing, and commanded him to bring Bush's nation under control of the greatest slave master of all time, for the good of all Americans.

They did not have a plan to immediately neutralize the supposed WMD's. Not "bad intelligence", they knew there were no WMD's. Imagine readying to invade a country based on alleged WMD's that could be unleashed on your invading forces, and no plan to immediately disarm them. Uh-huh.

They did have a plan to secure the oilfields asap (Camp Shell, Camp Exxon, etc), though.

McMonty, I hear ya. Planned invasion as soon as "The New Pearl Harbor" operation was implemented.

Several months ago, when there was a debate about whether there was bad planning, or no planning at all, I read the after action report of the Third Infantry Division. It quite clearly stated that there was no Phase 4 plan. At the time it was mind boggling, now it seems just SNAFU. We are being ruled by madmen.

"Plan of Attach"

Are you sure you don't mean "Planne of Attach"?

The Boskin Comission says that all economists everywhere, including those contacted beyond the grave via seance, agree that the 9/11 comission overstates the non-connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda by 1% or more.

Plus, the definition of WMD doesn't include cap pistols, and rubber bands, so therefore, to say "Saddam had no WMD" under this definition clearly misses the point that he was a grave and immediate threat to US security, and kittens everywhere!

Very incomplete analysis here. The US was always planning on staying --- otherwise, why didn't they simply leave after toppling Saddam, as the first commenter asked?

What they didn't plan on was having to keep >100,000 troops there. They thought they'd go in, take out Saddam, establish bases and a permanent presence there, and move on to the next conquest. It's this part of the plan that hasn't worked out the way they thought it would.

Kevin, you are correct that Bush did not intend to establish a democracy in Iraq, but you have the details a little wrong.

Iraq was supposed to go like a banana republic coup, where the troops roll into the capital and replace El Presidente with New El Presidente, and that's that.

What was SUPPOSED to happen is that after bumping off Saddam, we would install Ahmed Chalabi as the new guy in charge, and then we could do whatever we wanted with the country.

Sadly, it turned out that Chalabi was not the exiled leader of a massive public movement, as he claimed, and Ayatollah Sistani demanded popular elections. Bush caved in, and that's how the rationale of the invasion became "democracy promotion." It was never part of the plan in the first place.

Superceding all that, the security situation has reached a point where the country is not governable by anyone, so it hardly matters anymore who the "government" is and how they got there.

A Phase IV plan if there had been one --might-- have helped sustain secure conditions, but you can't like the chances, given the totally inadequate number of troops sent in. Gen. Batiste (recently commanded the 1st ID in Iraq) has said at least 340,000 coalition troops, PLUS the Iraqi security forces relatively intact, would have been required to secure the county. (Probably more would be required now, if there was any interest in winning the war by escalation.)

But the total and deliberate failure to plan for Phase IV at all is an almost inconceivable blunder by Rumsfeld.

They did not have a plan to immediately neutralize the supposed WMD's.
-farang

The White House knew perfectly well Iraq had no WMDs, a suspicion confirmed the day Bush ordered troops to invade. It has never been US policy to attack a country with WMDs (ie North Korea, or the USSR during the cold war). If Hussein actually had a chemical or nuclear weapon, why wouldn't he use it against an invading army?? What was he doing, saving em for when he really needed them?

The WMD issue was never more than rhetoric. The day Colin Powell stood up and brandished fake vials of anthrax on the floor of the UN marked the end of his political career. (a fact he now acknowledges...a day late and dollar short. fuck him) It was always a joke, and the White House knew it was a joke.

Its not as if a decade of weapons inspectors were picking their noses and ignoring the highway to Syria. Mobile weapons labs? Right. Yeah. Sure. Because all the satellites tasked on Iraq were looking down blouses, they missed those huge trucks and the tanks and the centrifuges and blah de blah...

Permanent.Military.Bases.

Iraqi.Oil.Fields.

These clowns were planning on staying all along. They just didn't want to let on that they were planning on staying.

Permanent.Military.Bases.

Iraqi.Oil.Fields.

No matter how obvious it is, this simply isn't allowed to be discussed in 'respectable' discourse. What passes for the 'left' in the blogosphere --- i.e., Kevin Drum, Kos, etc. --- won't acknowledge it no matter what.

Phase 4 was not planned because Rumsfeld and the Bush regime wanted to create the perfect totalitarian society of continuous terror.

I've long suspected that the whole plan was simply to place military staging points ( bases ) in Iraq : fallout was irrelevant. At the end of the day, U.S. military would be available for whatever forays were thought handy. Gravy from oil revenues, federal contracts and sundry scams would make money flow to whoever could co-opt control of the country.

"Yoo hoo, trolls? Anyone out there?"

Sure. Guess what: You're not getting the Congress back in November, and from the looks of things here, most of you aren't going to have any sanity left by January of 2009.

How's that? Have fun with your rantings. Ciao.

Of course they were planning on staying: why else build 14 permanent bases? Not only were they planning on staying, but they were planning to use those bases as forward bases for invasions of Iran and Syria.

The polarization that exists now has fixed such a cynical perspective of things that no one seems to believe anything beyond the limits of their own allegiances. Couldn't Rumsfeld have truly felt the war would've been over quickly and that democracy would've sprung up from the ashes, the way it's gonna do in Iraq?

It belongs on the front page of the New York Times, not the Hampton Roads Daily Press.

You mean "not only the Hampton Roads Daily Press", of course.

The plan was to remove Saddam from power, claim victory, and get out.

I remember hearing some right-wing kook on the radio back in, oh, late '03 or so bemoaning the fact that we were engaging in nation building, and that we should have simply gone in, removed Saddam, and gotten out. I recall at the time vehemently disagreeing with his idiocy.

Know what? I'm increasingly thinking he was correct.

Thing is, Jihadist terrorism probably isn't an existential threat to western civilization or to America itself. Bombings and highjackings, while very scary, simply aren't going to destroy us, or even cause us particularly severe harm (yes, 911 was terrible, but a big score like that is likely a very rare occurance given the heightened security posture of western intelligence forces in the post-911 era).

I repeat, jihadist terrorism is not an existential threat, unless the jihadis acquire nuclear weapons.

Keeping these uniquely dangerous weapons out of the hands of those who seek our destruction should be the loadstone of American national security policy.

Although the administration erred badly on the question of Iraq's nuclear program, given the transformative power of nuclear weapons, one can understand the strategy of erring on the side of "caution" with respect to the Hussein regime.

But I'm increasingly thinking: once Saddam was overthrown, and we were able to verify that Iraq posed no WMD threat, we should have gotten the hell out. What do we care whether or not the Iraqis are able to build a democracy? It seems wildly fanciful, to say the least, that they can build western-style democracy any time this century. And even if they don't, who cares? One more nasty regime doesn't matter in the big picture, as long as said nasty regime can't give Osama Bin Laden a nuclear weapon (I hate to sound like a broken record, but again, it will take a lot more than the odd bombing of a subway station or an embassy to bring the USA to its knees).

I also hate to be so cynical, by the way, but one simply can't be anything but cynical these days. I think morally we're obliged to at least give financial support to the Iraqis, as we've helped plunged them into anarchy, but we can't force them to democratize at the barrel of a gun. It just won't work. And again (for the umpteenth time) the state of Iraqi governance is largely irrelevant to American national security interests in any event. It's the state of the Iraqi arsenal that's relevant, and we've long since been able to verify their nuclear cupboard is bare.

I think from the standpoint of pure national interest, goinng into Iraq was likely justified given the fact that Saddam was trying to make the world think he possessed nuclear weapons, and given the fact that nuclear weapons really could give the terrorist the power to cause us horrific harm -- harm of an existential nature (at least "existential" in the sense of the continued existence of our way of life).

So, as much as I've grown to detest the man, I'm thinking perhaps we should have followed Rummy's advice: go in, kick some butt, get a good look at Saddam's laboratories, and get the hell out.

Such an M.O. may be necessary on a fairly regular basis from time to time. We are an empire, after all, and sometimes empires must make incursions in force into barbarian areas that are causing security issues. But smart empires leave it at that, and harbor no illusions about civilizing the natives. I could live with the occassional butt-kicking doled out by US forces in the particulary anarchic corners of the globe, especially if we keep casualties low, use overwhelming force, and immediately get out. But we don't need to occupy territory. We just need to strike the more blatant offenders of the Pax Americana every once in a while, to keep them off balance, to neutralize particularly thuggish anti-American enemies, to make sure they're not about to build H-bombs, and to make the whole world aware there's a high price to be paid for taking a shot at the empire. Come to think of it, everything about Iraq applies to Afganistan, too. It's time to get out. We can always come back in four or five year with small but highly lethal forces and overwhelming technology and air power, should the Afghan government be overthrown or find its control of the country's territory has slipped to unaccetably low levels.

Finally, one advantage to such a strategy, in addition to saving us money, is that it takes advantage of our strengths, while minimizing our glaring weaknesses (American impatience with long slow fights, casualty reluctance, etc.). Bottom line: we simply don't have the constitution or fortitude for endless wars of occupation. It's not in our national character. But since long wars of occupation are not necessary for us to win, this is not a problem.

And no, I wouldn't want this pattern to go on ad infinitum. It sounds like a mighty dark world to leave to our children. So we have to strive for an end game. That end game is the successful use of soft western power over many many years to foster western values throughout the world, so as to eventually make violence on our part unnecessary.

So: the lack of postwar planning wasn't merely the result of incompetence. It was deliberate policy.

But you see that's what many of your "stupid" readers have been saying all along. You know, those of us who cannot stand studying the details and nitty-gritty politics all day long and come here and to other blogs for summaries. Instead, we'd rather go off and read pie in the sky fictional mysteries and detective who-done-its.

And that's where we find so many detectives saying: Criminals and murderers are mostly stupid people. And so we turn around and say: Bush isn't entirely incompetent. As Josephine Tey would say for example, the criminal mind is expert at getting from A to B but they never anticipate that if one goes from A to B, C and D will necessarily follow. We discover the C and D and we say, "Aren't these criminals stupid!"

Arthur Upfield also says, most murderers are stupid.

But getting back to reality. John Dean and Al Gore are currently the best at stating the enigma: Cheney is suave and clever and very intellegent (and I bet he can spell better'n me too), but his impulsiveness has lead him to make an incredibly long series of horrible decisions.

Or consider what Al Gore said about Bush, that he's not dumb, he's a politically charismatic and has his form of genius. But Gore says he's never met a man who is so incurious as Bush is-- for instance about scientific issues.

I think the mistake for some people (some bloggers might say....) is that we try to pigeon hole Cheney/ Rumsfeld / Bush as being dumb or incompetent in a normal sort of way. And I wonder if we don't do this because it's so necessary to go into denial; the idea that there are at least three criminal minds in positions of highest power in this country is really an unbearable thought to consider for too many minutes. OUR minds don't work that way.

But that's what we have to admit to ourselves and hold in our minds that they are: ciminal minds that act in very clever ways in getting themselves into messes, and very inventive ways in trying to cover their butts. And in their criminal cleverness or inventiveness, they leave astoundingly and blatantly obvious clues that lead right to their crimes that point to their guilt. But again, our minds don't work that way, and so it becomes difficult to sustain understanding for very long of minds that DO operate that way.

It isn't their stupidity that's stopping us from getting beyond this and doing what needs to be done. Rather it's our "stupidity" or really our continually assumption or instinct that we must go into denial, ... which is followed again by rediscovering the fact of their criminal minds and behavior everytime something new comes to light.

To be fair, Mr. Drum does write, In a way, this is old news. As much as it beggars the imagination, there's been plenty of evidence all along that Bush never took the idea of rebuilding Iraq seriously. The plan was to remove Saddam from power, claim victory, and get out. In other words there was plenty of evidence even before the invasion of Iraq that this administration was purposefully NOT planning for C and D that would result from an invasion.

What sort of stupidity is it in us that we keep slipping back into the denial syndrom that blinds us to the fact that these are criminal minds? It may be a very special sort of self-protective denial that instinctively keeps us from going insane. But we really need to stop doing it.

They are criminal minds; They will never change. Which leads us to a second motivation for our denial: not only do we not want to permanently acknowledge to our selves that they are sick minds, we furthermore don't want to begin down the path of taking care of these criminal minds the same as we would ANY OTHER criminal mind or group of criminal minds. In the end we will have to arrest, and try each of them same as anyone else who has committed criminal acts either individually or as a crime family--even though that will take work that we will have to perform for the rest of our lives. We will always have to take care of them, and we don't want to have to do that.

And that's not saying anything about taking care of the other terrorists and bullies in the world.
Those whom the WareOnTerror was supposed to be about.

But if we don't begin to take care of this situation, they will continue to murder, destroy and steal.

There is one missing piece to this puzzle.

If the original Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/neo-con-nut plan was to invade Iraq, depose Saddam Hussein and then pull out (at least from the cities, we all know they weren't going to so easily give up control of Iraq's oil resources), then what could have possibly altered this plan?

I know. The WMD that Hussein presumably had wasn't found immediately. In fact, none of the huge quantities of WMD that the Bush administration hyped as a direct threat to the United States before the war has been found.

I remember reading Judith Miller's NYT articles in late March, early April 2003, from her embedded reporter position with a military unit inside Iraq that was tasked with finding Hussein's WMD. They were scurrying all over the place...and finding nothing.

Then there were the two Iraqi Survey Groups that were tasked with finding Hussein's missing WMD by the Bush administration. Their fruitless search lasted for almost two years, following the invasion.

Therefore, during this period of time during which no Iraqi WMD was found, if the Bush administration was going to continue their fruitless search, then they had to come up with some post-Hussein Iraq government plan.

In other words, maybe the Bushites had a plan to invade Iraq, depose Hussein, then get out...but only after discovering the WMD they said would be found, which they used to hype starting war with Iraq in the first place. But the search for WMD drug on and on and on, so their initial plan called for a "change in course."

Thus, they started their talking points about spreading democracy and establishing a democracy in post-Hussein Iraq...commendable policies which have been just as successful as their search for WMD in Iraq. Oh, wait, I meant to say FAILURES.

I guess Saddam neglected the reach around when him and Rumsfailed were butt buddies. And that's why the incompetent bastard wanted to get him.

Rumsfeld and Bush deliberately, not stupidly, prevented Phase 4 planning and operations because they wanted Iraq to degenerate into a continuous state of terror. It is the new society being planned by our leaders.

Iraq was likely justified given the fact that Saddam was trying to make the world think he possessed nuclear weapons

The invasion was wrong. No justification can be made to support the lies Bush and Rumsfeld told about the reasons for invasion at that particular time. Iraq posed no threat. Today, Iran poses no threat.

It belongs on the front page of the New York Times, not the Hampton Roads Daily Press.

It sure does.

When I hear about Tommy Franks and his vaunted war plans, I wonder why we never hear about the man who actually led our forces--LTG McKiernan--and the fact that they had these plans sitting around for years.

Jason, my opinion is that when we can bring 100 times more fire power to any given battle, we are going to win and win big. I think it would have been a rout no matter who was in charge.

Ahem. Of course all the talk about democratic Iraq is and was a crock!!!! That's not news. They only wanted a quick invasion to depose Saddam. They had to create the WMD scare in order to make deposing the leader of a sovereign country legit. The big, big blunder was to think that Americans would be welcomed with flowers and candy. I guess they thought the jubilation of being rid of Saddam would just magically produce a government of Sunni and Shia forever grateful to the US (and therein lies the oil angle, hedged a bit by providing Chalabi as the new Prez). The last couple of days have just been amazing as the US media catches up slowly to all this stuff for the very first time. Only three and a half years late. Idiots or accomplices?

Bunkysdad-

I love that explaination. It's moronic, which makes it great.

More prosiac is the fact that the first choices for leading Iraq and Afghanistan have to speak English. Leaders of other countries can get by just fine without knowing English, but it plays poorly on US television. Having Chalabi on the Sunday morning talk shows made made a huge difference to his early prospects.

It was noted above that "we have to strive for an end game. That end game is the successful use of soft western power over many many years to foster western values throughout the world, so as to eventually make violence on our part unnecessary."

In think this is a reasonable point, but it seems too late. An intelligent, consistent, and effective use of soft power would have been the best counter-terror weapon we’d have had after 9/11, as it would have isolated the violent radicals and strengthened moderates in Islamic societies. But the Bush administration's actions have exhausted much of the prestige and soft power the United States had built up at the time he came into office.

Hey , Don't count me out. Ahmadinejad says I get to be the PM in the new Shiite dominated Islamic Republic of Iraq. Do you think using the 'Sultan of Baghdad' on my personal letterhead would be to gauche?

Surely there's someone around to tell us this is Clinton's fault.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I've heard all the talk about there being "no plan" for the occupation for some time, and as a former logistics troop myself, I knew that wasn't true. My thought was along the lines of, its a damn shame that the American public can't be told the truth - that the strategic situation is going to require us to be there for many years.

It seems that the lesson some have learned from Vietnam is that more care must be taken to manipulate public sentiment while pursuing strategic objectives. Well, I think the lesson from Iraq will be that the American public will simply not support a long war for any reason.

Don't get me wrong. I do think the strategic objective of this war is sound. But the tactics used so far have been incompatible with the need to keep the American public from losing its will to complete the mission. I may be wrong. It is possible that the public, though disheartened, will see this through. But I suspect that they will not.

If we were to do it over, we would operate far differently. We would go in with five or six times as many troops and, recognizing the need for a quick resolution, we would be far more brutal. Falujah, Ramadi and much of Baghdad would be destroyed. Vehicle traffic from Syria eliminated. Insurgents and suspected insurgents rounded up and detained for the duration. The public completely disarmed and weapons violations punished swiftly and harshly. If war is necessary, then we must be willing to win it overwhelmingly and conclusively, or not fight it at all. The American public will not accept any less. In other words, if we are not willing to be brutal, we are not willing to fight.

I imagine that the discussions in professional military circles will be about how to better manage public opinion in the future. Well, its not that complicated. We must manage the public the same way we manage the military. When the mission is clear, morale is not a problem.

I wish I could find a link to it, but I can remember a moment before the war started when Rumsfeld, George, and the military planners were all sitting around a table after they had invited reporters in to the room. George had the gumption to ask, "How long will this take?" Rumsfeld very quickly jumped in and said, "Don't answer that!"

I think this moment speaks volumes about the relationship between the president and the secdef.

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I was wrong

According to Gen. Jay Garner,there was planning for the post-war period. In the Oct,2005,Setion 2207 report of the SIGIR,Garner is quoted as saying that he was tapped to administer Iraq post-war and he was informed of this in late Jan.2003. As Garner say,"We were charged with planning for a March event in February."
www.SIGIR.gov

The SIGIR opens that section of the report noting that post war planning in WWII,including plans for the occupation of Japan and Germany,began in early 1942. But that was an old-style war whereas this was a 21st century war done cowboy style.
That SIGIR report also discussed the staffing issues in the CPA administration and how the internecine strife in the Cabinet led to half the billets going unfilled.Those that were filled had young,inexperienced party workers.
At least Rumsfeld picked somebody to do post-war planning. He did minimize the odds of success,however.

The deterioration in Afghanistan, following the American drawdown, looks to be another Donald Rumsfeld screwup.

"This is an astounding interview, all the more so for the apparently resigned tone that Scheid brings to it. It belongs on the front page of the New York Times, not the Hampton Roads Daily Press."

EXACTLY : SO WHY DO THE DEMOCRATS SEEM TO HAVE SUCH A DIFFICULT TIME CRAFTING AN EASY TO INGEST AND DIGEST NARRATIVE THAT DEFINES JUST HOW BAD THIS ADMINISTRATION IS?

Who doesn't believe that if Osama were caught tomorrow that Bush's approval rating would jump over 50 percent? It's absurd - he should be below 10 for christ sake! Is it because americans are stupid? The political process is broken? Or because the democrats have and are failing as the voice of the offical opposition?

these are the intersting questions that need answering.

IT'S ALL OLD NEWS!!! And, our media continues to SPIN themselves silly making excuses for this administration's evil manipulation of information in order to continue with what had become their desire and plan. AND, unless these drums get beat and beat right up until November's election, FAKUMENTARIES like the one planned for tomorrow will continue to inform the braindead kool-aid drinkers who even today (on WJ) call in and defend these sorry excuses for human beings and political leaders!

However, this is the clearest evidence I've seen yet.

Of course, but evidence doesn't matter to the Bush Cultists.

Instead, I hope General Scheid is prepared for the character assassinations sure to come from these so-called patriots.

So Randy, what it the "clear mission"? Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out?

Even if they didn't attack us? Even if they weren't even friends with the people who attacked us?

Are you arguing that "morale" of the American public (something so nebulous as to be meaningless, IMO) would be "high" if Bush had said that we're going to kill hundreds of thousands of people who have nothing to do with the people who attacked us?

I don't think that this is plausible.

Wouldn't Bush have had to sell the invasion on _something_? Years later, we're still trying to figure out why we invaded, what was the thinking at the top. What was the something that justified all of this?

I've tried real hard for years to figure out the post-victory plan and I've come to the conclusion that there really and truly wasn't one.

I speculate that this omission was due to a cabinet-level failure to define post-invasion goals and, while the bureaucrats all recognized the need for a plan, no agency leader really wanted responsiblity for implementation.

The president's inadequacy, of course allowed this to happen--specifically, his child-like inability to see beyond the triumphal photo-ops and celebrations of liberation a la Paris '44 (I'll bet his daydreams included church bells ringing in Baghdad.)

A friend of mine who works for US Customs was sent to Irag very early in the war in order to help set up a Customs Department for the port of Basra.

This is just another little piece of evidence that supports the idea that the planning was for a quick war and for Iraq to quickly become similar to a western democracy.

Kevin: Needless to say, he wouldn't have done this unless it reflected the wishes of the president.

You mean Cheney or Bush?

anna lourdes wrote: "Couldn't Rumsfeld have truly felt the war would've been over quickly and that democracy would've sprung up from the ashes"

Sure, and there is circumstantial evidence that this is, in fact, what he believed. But why does that matter? You always plan for contingencies and plan for the worst, particularly in military operations such as this. And if your military experts are trying to do just such planning, you damn well let them. To do otherwise is criminal incompetence.

"the way it's gonna do in Iraq?"

???

Carl's entry (early in thread): I wonder if the MSM has these reactions to a story like this.

1) Well, someone else already wrote about it.
2) We believe everyone knows this anyway so why
report it and get beat up by the White House and
Republicans.

Carl: could not have expressed it better myself, although I suspect you were inspired by reading the Washington Post's Daily Politics chats. These two are ALWAYS the correspondents' responses. (And I say this as someone who really likes the WPost!) I think many Post writers are afraid of losing what little access they have to senior administration figures.

Deterioration of MSM is frustrating (assume it's due to corporate parents and "objective" editors, not individual writers) but thank goodness for internet access to blogs with a variety of news and opinions.

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. — Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke.

BushCo had no plan, and that has certainly survived contact with the enemy -- they still have no contact.

...oops. Above should read:

...still have no plan".

Must go find coffe.

>>>

.

"I didn't advocate invasion, I wasn't asked." - Donald Rumsfeld 11/20/05

randy: When the mission is clear, morale is not a problem.

"Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament." - G.W. Bush 3/6/03

Not all the generals are against Donald Rumsfeld. He still has the support of a lot of generals: General Electric, General Dynamics, General Motors.

Heil Bush,

Re; "...what it the "clear mission"? Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out?"

What I'm saying is that for us to get involved in a war, its going to have to be that clear, yes. Of course, by the "clear mission" doctrine, there is hardly a war that we would have fought. It would have justified a strike against Japan (but not Germany), a strike against Al Queda (but not an occupation of Afghanistan), and possibly the conquest of the Indian Territories (in which we were more than willing to wage total war). It might also allow some precise missions such as driving Saddam out of Kuwait or driving Hitler out of France - though both were questionable as many Americans didn't give a damn about the French or Kuwaitis. It would have ruled out Iraq, Vietnam, the Cold War, World War I, the Mexican War, The Civil War, the War of 1812, and the American Revolution, in none of which we were willing to wage total war and in which the objectives were questioned by a significant percentage of Americans.

Where would we be if the above had been the case? Quite possibly right where we are - though the rest of the world would look quite different.

Thisspace,

It isn't about the mission being clear in the mind of the National Command Authorities. Its about the mission being clear in the minds of the American people.

If it weren't so sad, I'd find it hilarious that the same brain trust that came up with the "one percent doctrine" also believes that anything they decide is unlikely is, by definition, not worth planning for (levee breaches, non-optimal Iraqi reaction to war, etc).

I thought for sur Al or one of the other trolls would show up to call the general a liar by now.

Very incomplete analysis here. The US was always planning on staying --- otherwise, why didn't they simply leave after toppling Saddam, as the first commenter asked?

Because they thought we would be welcomed as liberators and they would just have to wait around long enough for democracy to magically appear and start handing out rebuilding contracts...Rumsfailed again.

This is shameful. And yet the so-called "liberal media" will probably ignore this, because they don't want to be smeared as liberally biased by the right-wing loudmouths. It's all about what brings in the bucks.

All of which paints in large bloody letters:

Do not elect an idiot president.

A Phase IV plan if there had been one --might-- have helped sustain secure conditions, but you can't like the chances, given the totally inadequate number of troops sent in. Gen. Batiste (recently commanded the 1st ID in Iraq) has said at least 340,000 coalition troops, PLUS the Iraqi security forces relatively intact, would have been required to secure the county.

That's one of the central reasons Rumsfeld didn't want to plan for Phase IV. It would have included the requirement for all those troops.

The question remains what were they thinking would fill the gap? It seems anyone with any experience in these matters told them there will be a Phase IV whether they want it or not and therefore they must have a Phase IV plan. Even if it said, "retrieve Iraqi government ignition key from Saddam and give it to Chalabi", they should at least have a plan. It is the height of black comedy to imagine that stuffed shirt throwing a fit in Nasiriyah when he first starts hearing from on the ground Iraqis about water shortages, electrical outages, etc. Dark stuff, indeed.

This is the pattern of conservatives. They don't believe in government, and don't know how it works. As Paul O'Niel pointed out, they don't do policy, and apparently planning is minimized.

They also consider that something they attempt is finished when they have the final ceremony. There is no follow-up, and no need to plan for follow-up. They assume that there is a normal human urge to function in a free market. It is part libertarian and part anarchist. You do what you planned to do, declare the project finished, and leave. If anyone else needs something done, they will do it.

The invasion of Iraq was supposed to end with the fall of Baghdad, and there was to have been a surrender ceremony. Then it would be over. Thomas Ricks in Fiasco says that Tommy Franks considered the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq would be over when the capital was taken.

But the Iraqis robbed Bush of the surrender ceremony by disbanding the military and sending everyone home to bury their uniforms. The frustration this caused is probably why Bush set up his own ceremony on the aircraft carrier and declared "Mission Accomplished."

Wrong. This general has a motive. He wants to appease the American left. He wants to be liked by the media. He also wants to courtmarshal our soldiers for killing the enemy. Ask the poor marines living in the brig in Camp Pandleton.

Perhaps the amount of graft that Bush has participated in since he became allegedly elected president is keeping Rumsfeld in power. What I mean is that there is no way to fire Rumsfeld without a lot of Executive corruption in the Office of the President from becoming known.

There can be no pre-assumption this "plan" for attack had any consideration whatsoever. It went more like "Daddy, Let me be a war president". And then "Okay, son, but I'm going to put you with the right people like I did to make you the decider in Texas, remember? Just hold on tight to Uncle Dick's hand and do everything he says. We'll keep you behind the curtain of plausible deniability as always so dont be frightened when bad things start to happen. Just lower your eyes and keep reading and it'll all be over shortly like those drug charges or when the bad men came and tried to find your military records." It'll be great financially for all our lovely friends and besides, we cant let public programs in this country turn all the "little people" into COMMUNISTS! fer christ's sake. Now you rest easy, I'm going to send Nana in with the hot water bottle and bed pan. We'll have things running smoothly in no time. Trust me!"

Years later, we're still trying to figure out why we invaded, what was the thinking at the top. What was the something that justified all of this?

I believe the thinking was: It will be really easy to take over Iraq. That was the Mother of All Fuckups where Iraq is concerned.

In their view, here was a country with huge oil deposits and an evil dictator who might pose a threat to us someday. And it can't defend itself. So, take it over. It's a no-brainer.

And to get public support for the war, say anything. Who cares? The war is going to be an overnight smash success, only a few people are going to care it was sold on the basis of lies.

There were several forces riding on the coat-tails of each other.
1. The Israeli's wanted Saddam overthrown.
2. U.S./U.K. Big Oil wanted control of Iraq's energy resources.
3. The Neocons wanted to destabilize the entire region for both imperialistic and ideolological reasons. They were the enablers that used politics of fear to manipulate Americans to support Iraq War, i.e.:
*****Saddam was behind 9/11
*****Saddam is a threat to Israel & U.S. with WMD

It's all about POWER, MONEY, and CORRUPT VALUES. The AXIS OF GREED (U.S./UK/Israel)is the new ROMAN EMPIRE. As with Rome, declining values will be its demise.

If Rummy told folks not to plan for staying even if he planned on staying, I'd assume it's because they could not plan for a long reconstruction and large deployment without sharing the details with anyone outside of Rummy's own scalp,which would risk exposure of said-unsaid plan...an action guaranteed to lose the support of the citizenry for apparent duplicitousness, or some other word implying actions associated with lying, and thereby lose the chance to 'neo-conify' the Middle East or according to Dave Chappelle, "Gonna that oil...ehhemm!!" Right? Yeah, I just checked, Dave Chappelle did say that.

stupid know-it-all generals. it's pointless to expect bullet-head zinni or ugly-argyle-sweater wesley clark about the horrors of war - they were probably drunk in new orleans during the nam - no wait, that was me.

to know about - ah, whatever

It was always implausible that the US would be able to set up a friendly post Saddam government in Iraq. Cheney knew it. Back in 1991 Sec Def Cheney said this:

http://www.slate.com/id/2072609/

“If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?”

It’s certainly possible that they minimized the difficulties publicly in 2002/3 to launch the war, but to literally NOT PLAN FOR AFTERMATH is so unbelievable…I hope I live long enough to get the real story. Personally, I think Bush thought that it was his destiny to remake the middle east and that God would somehow provide. Down the chain of command was Rumsfeld whose ego allowed him to ignore all other advice, and Cheney who was drifting off into clinical paranoia. Just my opinion. The real story has to be something pretty weird.

The Neo-Cons had a plan for post-war Iraq. A plan they worked out in detail and published for the world to see at the PNAC website. I wish I was being ironic or snarky but in all truth there was a plan.

Chalabi.

That was it, that was the plan. Sure there were expectations of basing rights and using Iraq to invade Syria and Iran, but the whole democracy and security thing was supposed to be handled by Chalabi. And they haven't given up, Google around on "Chalabi" and the neo-con of your choice and you will find they are still sold on Plan Chalabi. The neo-cons are like Moonies and LaRouchites in this regard.

The Army didn't need to waste time with a post-war plan. The Vulcans of the PNAC had that one covered - by the INC and Chalabi. Odd? Yes. Horrifying in retr