Remember: Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone mentioning the need for "Phase 4" planning

[journalist3072]

In light of the Pentagon's purely political response to Sen. Clinton's inquiry on the Pentagon's plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, I think there are a few things worth keeping in mind here:

1. Brigadier General Mark Scheid said Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone who mentioned the need for "Phase 4" (post-invasion) planning. From the Washington Monthly:

"HE WOULD FIRE THE NEXT PERSON THAT SAID THAT"....Today, via Orin Kerr, comes a remarkable interview with Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the Logistics War Plans Division after 9/11, and one of the people with primary responsibility for war planning. Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, he says, Donald Rumsfeld told his team to start planning for war in Iraq, but not to bother planning for a long stay:

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.

Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009469.php


2. There was an article in the Knight-Ridder newspaper which concluded that post-war planning was non-existent. From the Knight-Ridder article:

Planning for After the War in Iraq Non-Existent
by Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott

WASHINGTON - In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina 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."


Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1016-06.htm

[sakabatou]

1. Incompetant to the highest level

[journalist3072]

2. And criminal, IMO.