Iraq Miscalculation and Misstep - Investigative Report

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/9937387.htm
Phila Inquirer Oct 17, 2004

"The Iraq War: Miscalculation and Misstep

Poor planning and coastly errors have left the U.S. mired.
Postwar planning for Iraq 'ignored'

... In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met... a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war ... The slide said: "To Be Provided."

An Inquirer Washington Bureau review of the Iraq policy and decisions of the administration has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide about 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship, and economic sanctions.

... some senior Pentagon officials had thought they could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003. ...
"We didn't go in with a plan. We went in with a theory," said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.

..."The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious," warned an Army War College report that was completed in February 2003, a month before the invasion. Without an "overwhelming" effort to prepare for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the report warned, "The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."

A half-dozen intelligence reports also warned that U.S. troops could face significant postwar resistance. This foot-high stack of material was distributed at White House meetings of Bush's top foreign policy advisers, but there's no evidence that anyone ever acted on it. "It was disseminated. And ignored," said a former senior intelligence official.

The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency was particularly aggressive in its forecasts...Similar warnings came from the Pentagon's Joint Staff, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the CIA's National Intelligence Council."

The CIA hates being the fall-guy for the Neocons mistakes....

Keep this kicked.

people who know things are going to start helping us out so that the disaster that is the bush* administration doesn't regain control again? I do. I think that panic and anger is setting in on some people who know what this administration has been up to, and they're going to try to get them out before they can do anymore damage and complete the takeover of the intelligence community.