In 2001, the US had war plans for no fewer than 68 countries.

[greatauntoftriplets]

According to Bob Woodward in his "Plan of Attack" book, "Of the 68 plans, fewer than 10 were massive, fully developed plans such as those for Korea, Iraq and a few other potential hot spots. The rest were smaller contingency plans for civilian evacuations or for defending key areas such as the Panama Canal."

Who wants to speculate on what some of those "war plans" were?

[skooooo]

1. Don't these kind of things always exist tho??

I mean there's probably plans for all kinds of things laying around.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. Yep, apparently so.

Democrats as well as repukes, apparently.

[Toucano]

3. I'm pretty sure you're right.

I've no doubt we've spent millions paying people to dream up scenarios for "When Canada Attacks".

It matters how developed the plan is. Once it goes from paper "what ifs" to ordering massive amounts of sunblock (like the pentagon did in 2002), it kind of changes the meaning of a "plan".

[fishnfla]

4. They have contingency plans for everything, like planes into buildings too

and they all work just great

[Muddleoftheroad]

9. Defense department

The guys who defend us are supposed to plan ahead in as many ways as possible.

[BlueStateGirl]

5. Monaco. Vegas is too touristy, and AC is just dirty.

America needs Monte Carlo!

Seriously, though, I would guess there was a defense plan for Tawain, probably some sort of plan for Kashmir, evacuation and defense plans for any area with a major US military base.

Iraq, Korea, Iran, maybe Syria, have full blown war plans ready.

[izzie]

6. Yar I believe it and a special dept. to give each a special name.

We have a General for names of wars Bush plans to start, I am sure.I think we have the military in over 100 countries now so we need to keep it all in order. I wonder how the Brits did all this when they had an army every place. Really a good waste of tax payers money.

[porkrind]

7. Tells us where their priorities are (and it's not us)

Notice there is no realistic plan for future success on:

• Healthcare
  
• Social Security
  
• Jobs
  
• Homelessness
  
• Child Poverty
  
• Education
  
• Environment
  
• Corporate criminal reform
  
• Tax reform
  
• Trade deficits
  
• Domestic manufacturing
  
• etc. ...
  

:(

---

Read about the Right-Wing "Master Plan": http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-contents.html

[HawkerHurricane]

8. Only 68?

After WW1, the U.S. set up a whole slew of war plans under the codename 'Rainbow' (given that each country was codenamed after a color, no surprise). World War 2 was fought using warplans 'Rainbow 5 variant Orange/Black hostile, Red friendly... Orange being the code for Japan, Black for Germany, and Red for England and the commonwealth. Other color/Countries included (but not limited to)
Gray: Azores
Yellow: China
Ruby: Canada
White: US Civil Disorder
Green: US Army (as friendly)
Blue: US Navy and Marines (as friendly)

There were a horde of others. There is almost certainly a whole department of the Pentagon that does nothing but write up and revise warplans, everything from 'raid to free American Embassy in downtown Bermuda' to 'conquest and occupation of People's Republic of China, with no help from Taiwan'.

No big deal, says I.

[the Kelly Gang]

10. imagine these efforts & wealth put into humanitarian aid, there

would be no need for war plans ever.

[walmartsucks]

11. But I thought we had no business

Meddling in the affairs of other countries. Why should that apply to military & political affairs and not humanitarian aid?

[the Kelly Gang]

13. and why shouldn't it ??.cheaper in the long run

[cliss]

12. I'm wondering......exactly what time frame was this?

Bob Woodward said "fewer than 10 were massive". Was this recently?

The reason I'm asking is because I just did some studying on Sweden's foreign minister, Anna Lindh who was assassinated about 6 months ago.

In one of her interviews, she mentions that Sweden was very concerned, as was the rest of the world, about the US marching into Iraq. She had asked some envoy from the US State Department if they were planning to attack any other countries.

He had told her no, the US promised them that Iraq was the only one. So now I'm wondering: did he deliberately lie to her? Or was he telling the truth?

If he was telling the truth, why then did we sign the Patriot Act which allows the US to pre-emptively attack any country which bothers us? Just curious.

[greatauntoftriplets]

14. Woodward didn't say how far back they went.

Obviously they were around during the Clinton administration, and certainly before that. No information on when they last had been updated.

Perhaps the envoy was not aware of all the war plans? Why did we sign the USA Patriot Act? Because it was part of PNAC's agenda and Congress was scared shitless after 9/11.

[cliss]

15. Thanks for the info, GA

The whole thing seems strange to me. That they would say one thing to European countries who are uneasy and frightened about the whole thing. Then to be lied to. It's so outrageous.

This means that it's every man for himself; our entire system of cooperating with other countries has broken down and the days of diplomacy are over.

[Bombtrack]

16. Well it's pretty likely all of the expanded axis of evil countries + Afgan

-istan.

If I recall correctly that's Iraq, Iran, N. Korea, plus Cuba, Libya and Syria. They also probably had a plan for if Saudi Arabia had a coup or something, so with Afganistan that makes 8.

The last 2? Probably Pakistan and Indonesia.