andyfox
01-21-2004, 03:28 AM
Two interesting articles about Iraq are in the January/February edition of Atlantic magazine.
The first is by James Fallows. He says the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully ignored by the people in charge. Almost everything, good and bad, that has happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime was the subject of extensive pre-war discussion and analysis. The problems the U.S. has encountered are precisely the ones its own expert agencies warned against.
But because detailed planning for the post-war situation meant facing costs and potential problems, it weakened the case for a "war of choice," and was seen by the war's proponents as an "antiwar" undertaking. Rumsfeld, for example, forbade DOD people from attending CIA war-game sessions.
Such thinking led to statements like this one, from Paul Wolfowitz to the House Budget Committee: "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Sadam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine."
Fallows attributes the problems to three factors: the panache of Rumsfeld; the triumphalism of the administration, and the preference of the president for large choices and avoidance of details.
The second article is by Kenneth M. Pollack and concerns the intelligence failures and the administration's handling of intelligence. Many administration officials reacted negatively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted their preconceived notions of Iraq. They gave greatest credence only to accounts that presented the most lurid picture of Iraqi activities. Administration officials even set up shop in the Pentagon to cherry-pick the information they wanted, selecting information that trained intelligence officers considered unreliable or downright false (for example, the connection between Hussein and al-Qadea.) It would then pass on this doubtful information straight to Cabinet meetings as gospel. The administration was wrong about Iraq's WMDs because the intelligence was faulty and it chose to utilize the faultiest information available.
Very interesting reading for all you policy wonks out there.
The first is by James Fallows. He says the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully ignored by the people in charge. Almost everything, good and bad, that has happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime was the subject of extensive pre-war discussion and analysis. The problems the U.S. has encountered are precisely the ones its own expert agencies warned against.
But because detailed planning for the post-war situation meant facing costs and potential problems, it weakened the case for a "war of choice," and was seen by the war's proponents as an "antiwar" undertaking. Rumsfeld, for example, forbade DOD people from attending CIA war-game sessions.
Such thinking led to statements like this one, from Paul Wolfowitz to the House Budget Committee: "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Sadam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine."
Fallows attributes the problems to three factors: the panache of Rumsfeld; the triumphalism of the administration, and the preference of the president for large choices and avoidance of details.
The second article is by Kenneth M. Pollack and concerns the intelligence failures and the administration's handling of intelligence. Many administration officials reacted negatively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted their preconceived notions of Iraq. They gave greatest credence only to accounts that presented the most lurid picture of Iraqi activities. Administration officials even set up shop in the Pentagon to cherry-pick the information they wanted, selecting information that trained intelligence officers considered unreliable or downright false (for example, the connection between Hussein and al-Qadea.) It would then pass on this doubtful information straight to Cabinet meetings as gospel. The administration was wrong about Iraq's WMDs because the intelligence was faulty and it chose to utilize the faultiest information available.
Very interesting reading for all you policy wonks out there.