Posted on 07/31/2005 10:49:32 AM PDT by Libloather
Bush faulted on postwar planning
REUTERS
WASHINGTON - An independent assessment of the tumult in Iraq led by two top former presidential advisers found that the Bush administration was unprepared for postwar Iraq and underestimated the number of troops needed in a miscalculation that helped fuel the insurgency.
The report by a Council on Foreign Relations task force, released Wednesday, concluded that the failure to prepare properly for the period after the war had given "early impetus for the insurgency" now gripping the country.
The task force was headed by two former national security advisers, Democrat Samuel "Sandy" Berger and Republican Brent Scowcroft, and presented a bipartisan critique of the Bush approach.
Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, had warned publicly of the risks of military action in Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.
"The critical miscalculation of Iraq war-planning was that the stabilization and reconstruction mission would require no more forces than the invasion itself," the panel reported.
"Prewar inattention to postwar requirements - or simply misjudgments about them - left the United States ill-equipped to address public security, governance and economic demands in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, seriously undermining key U.S. foreign policy goals and giving early impetus to the insurgency," it said.
The report said President Bush still had not made the changes in policy and government structure needed to respond to future post-conflict situations and said this should be a top foreign-policy priority.
It noted that during the 1990s, action to stabilize and rebuild states marked by conflict was often derided as "foreign policy as social work."
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, however, Bush and others redefined the problem and acknowledged that weak states, like Afghanistan, could become havens for extremists and accepted that dealing with them was equally a humanitarian and national security priority, it said. But this acceptance "has yet to be matched by a comprehensive policy or institutional capacity within the U.S. government to engage successfully in stabilization and reconstruction missions," it said.
Well, I hope that Scowcroft's contact with Sandy Burgler was on visitors day at the prison... Oh, that's right! He never did go to jail for stealing classified documents, did he?
Mark
When has it been done better?
This is ludicrous! How does the AP report on Sandy Berger and "national security" without laughing out loud? I thought this was from "scrappleface" or the Onion at first!
Thanks for the ping!
Scowcroft & Sandy Berger bump
Um, I think not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.