Excuse me...?

[Judy G. Russell]

(CNN) -- Donald Rumsfeld's Iraqi war plan worked beautifully for three weeks. U.S. troops quickly deposed Saddam Hussein and captured Baghdad with a relatively small force and with lightning speed.

But with Iraq on the verge of civil war three years later, the secretary of defense now admits that no one was well-prepared for what would happen after major combat ended.

"Well, I think that anyone who looks at it with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say that there was not an anticipation that the level of insurgency would be anything approximating what it is," Rumsfeld told CNN for the documentary, "CNN Presents Rumsfeld -- Man of War," which debuts Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
So we're supposed to believe that because HE didn't anticipate it (though all the commanders on the ground did, and most of the folks in the State Department, and just about anyone who wasn't a neocon), we should all just forgive and forget??????

[ndebord]

So we're supposed to believe that because HE didn't anticipate it (though all the commanders on the ground did, and most of the folks in the State Department, and just about anyone who wasn't a neocon), we should all just forgive and forget??????

Judy,

Just the Big Lie updated.

[Maj.-Gen. John Batiste, who commanded an infantry division in Iraq, said Mr. Rumsfeld once threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060925.wterrorr0925/BNStory/International/home

[Judy G. Russell]

[Maj.-Gen. John Batiste, who commanded an infantry division in Iraq, said Mr. Rumsfeld once threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.]I hope every family member of every sailor, soldier, airman and marine who has died in Iraq since Rummie's plan fell apart, three weeks into the war, has something to say about that...

[Lindsey]

[Maj.-Gen. John Batiste, who commanded an infantry division in Iraq, said Mr. Rumsfeld once threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.]
Thank you -- I had seen that, too, but I couldn't remember specifically where. I'm glad you pointed to a source!

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

So we're supposed to believe that because HE didn't anticipate it (though all the commanders on the ground did, and most of the folks in the State Department, and just about anyone who wasn't a neocon), we should all just forgive and forget??????
Donald Rumsfeld is a lying bastard. These guys ridiculed anyone who suggested there might be an Iraqi resistence, and were denying there was any such problem much farther out than three weeks into the war:

In July 2004, upon being briefed on the grim analysis of the growing Iraqi insurgency written by the CIA Baghdad station chief, Bush said, according to U.S. News & World Report, "What is he, some kind of defeatist?"

(http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/03/02/bush_flattery/print.html)
The CIA station chief was soon thereafter replaced, "shoot the messenger" being the operating philosophy of the Bush 43 administration.

Bush 41 and his advisors saw in 1991 that insurgency was a serious danger; that's one reason they declined to take the troops into Baghdad, and agreed to talk terms as soon as the objective of ejecting the Iraqis from Kuwait had been achieved.

--Lindsey

[ndebord]

Thank you -- I had seen that, too, but I couldn't remember specifically where. I'm glad you pointed to a source!

--Lindsey

Lindsey,

I find the Canadians more forthcoming in their coverage generally.

[Judy G. Russell]

Sigh... it's absolutely positively amazing how these guys try to rewrite history. Oh no, nobody ever foresaw that we didn't have enough troops on the ground, except the generals who were fired for saying so (and everyone else). Oh, no, nobody ever foresaw that there would be problems with insurgency, except the advisors who were fired for saying so (and everyone else).

[Lindsey]

Sigh... it's absolutely positively amazing how these guys try to rewrite history.
I don't know whether Bush understood Camus, but he sure understood George Orwell. :(

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

I don't know whether Bush understood Camus, but he sure understood George Orwell. :( yOnly too well, I'm afraid.