Report says rebuilding efforts lacked plan

[huckleberry]

Also, the administration failed to provide 100,000 troops requested by the military.

By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott of our Washington bureau

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a series about how the U.S, handled planning and decisions about the Iraq war.

WASHINGTON — In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met 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.”


snip


At the Pentagon, the director of the Joint Staff, Army Gen. George Casey, repeatedly pressed Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the Central Command, for a “Phase 4,” or postwar, plan, the senior defense official said.

“Casey was screaming, ‘Where is our Phase 4 plan?’ ” the official said. It never arrived. Casey is now the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

The same officials who saw no need for a plan to secure and rebuild a defeated Iraq also saw no need for thousands of U.S. soldiers, including military police, engineers, ordnance disposal teams and civil affairs specialists, whom commanders wanted to help take control in Iraq. Longstanding Army doctrine calls for beginning reconstruction in freed areas of a country while fighting rages elsewhere. It also calls for a shift in military forces from combat troops to civil affairs, military police and the like.

“Unfortunately, this did not occur despite clear guidance to the contrary,” Army Col. Paul F. Dicker wrote in an assessment.

more at
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/local/9937603.htm

[MSgt213]

1. What? No plan?

[FloridaPat]

2. There was a plan. It's working perfectly. Here's it is:

1. Grab the oil wells.
2. Take as much money from the treasury as possible to give to favorite defense contractors. Now for them to make the most money, they have to do as little as possible.
3. Sell the oil wells. Now here is where they ran into a snag. There are buyers, but to put the money in they need to, someone has to sign the sales slip. You need a UN legitimate government. But you can't let the Iraqis have a real democracy because they just might not sell you US companies. Also, for companies to buy the oil wells, you need insurance and no insurance companies will go in there because it's such a mess.
4. Keep things a mess until you're sure that you can get the puppet government in you want to you can legally sell the oil wells, the banks, electric companies, and water. But you have to do something with those pesky civilians that know that once everything is sold, they will be broke forever. So you keep everything a mess so you can't have a real democracy but no one in the US realizes this before the electon. Now once the electon is out of the way, you bomb the hell out of the civilians, kill as many as possible, get that legal government in and get the sales papers signed. This can all be done before January 20th if they really clamp down on the rebels on Nov 4.

[RedEarth]

3. Thanks for the post......