From Our "Well, DUH!" Desk ...
This neat little article comes to us from the BBC, as a teaser for a two-part series on the Iraq War and the United Kingdom's (specifically Tony Blair's) role in this whole sorry affair.
The article points out the woeful, even criminal, lack of postwar planning on the part of the United States. It seems that no one in the US government gave the idea of "Okay, what happens next?" any thought at all.
According to a textbook I own, Planning in the Public Sector, the State Department had done some planning, coming up with a fourteen-volume set of plans that covered all the aspects of postwar operations. However (I hate that word - it lands in a discussion with a thud like a mass of wet cement) postwar planning was handed over to the Defense Department, who essentially threw out what the State Department had put together and chose to 'wing it.'
So we ended up with incompetents (but good Party members) running things.
So we ended up with a worthless apparatchik named L. Paul Bremer as Viceroy.
So we ended up disbanding the Iraqi Army, throwing roughly 2 million men out into unemployment, giving them a grudge that they could use their military technology on.
So we ended up killing roughly 100,000 Iraqis and now there are 4 million Iraqis dispossessed and exiled.
So we ended up with 4100 coalition deaths, and a butcher's bill on borrowed money that our grandchildren will be hard-put to pay off.
Didn't anyone ever teach Dear Leader and his Cabinet the "Five Ps?"
Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
This has turned out to be once of the worst Administrations this nation has ever had. Khrushchev said (I believe) that the United States would destroy itself from within, and it certainly looks like it from my vantage point, folks. And the worst thing is these rubes didn't fall through a portal from another dimension - they're the product of American schools, universities, business schools and were elected by people who should have known better.
I pray before Hecate and Ereshkigal that some day there will be a reckoning.
The article points out the woeful, even criminal, lack of postwar planning on the part of the United States. It seems that no one in the US government gave the idea of "Okay, what happens next?" any thought at all.
According to a textbook I own, Planning in the Public Sector, the State Department had done some planning, coming up with a fourteen-volume set of plans that covered all the aspects of postwar operations. However (I hate that word - it lands in a discussion with a thud like a mass of wet cement) postwar planning was handed over to the Defense Department, who essentially threw out what the State Department had put together and chose to 'wing it.'
So we ended up with incompetents (but good Party members) running things.
So we ended up with a worthless apparatchik named L. Paul Bremer as Viceroy.
So we ended up disbanding the Iraqi Army, throwing roughly 2 million men out into unemployment, giving them a grudge that they could use their military technology on.
So we ended up killing roughly 100,000 Iraqis and now there are 4 million Iraqis dispossessed and exiled.
So we ended up with 4100 coalition deaths, and a butcher's bill on borrowed money that our grandchildren will be hard-put to pay off.
Didn't anyone ever teach Dear Leader and his Cabinet the "Five Ps?"
Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
This has turned out to be once of the worst Administrations this nation has ever had. Khrushchev said (I believe) that the United States would destroy itself from within, and it certainly looks like it from my vantage point, folks. And the worst thing is these rubes didn't fall through a portal from another dimension - they're the product of American schools, universities, business schools and were elected by people who should have known better.
I pray before Hecate and Ereshkigal that some day there will be a reckoning.
posted by Walt at 1:08 PM
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