by hilzoy
Beneath the headline “Panel: Bush Was Unready for Postwar Iraq”, the AP delivers this startling news:
“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.”
Gee: ya think?
why do independent advisors hate America?
“…chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate postwar planning.”
This is actually a whitewash version of the truth. A huge amount of postwar planning was done — coordinated primarily by the State Department. It was then purposefully ignored by the Pentagon and the Bush administration who were at war with the competent bureaucrats for their lack of fervor for Bushism.
A classic example was the explicit warnings and plans concerning post-war looting, which were then not only ignored, but Rumsfeld made light of the looting as if it didn’t really matter.
The chaos had more to do with arrogant defiance of sound counsel by those in charge of policy — your Bush administration. To ascribe it to poor planning is sadly wrong. It belittles the planners who made sound recommendations as to what should be done, and deflects blame from the ideologically driven incompetence that goes right to the top.
Alas, since it’s Berger & Scowcroft, that adds exactly zero to the number of people who already understood this …