Posted on 06/12/2005 4:42:17 AM PDT by anniegetyourgun
WASHINGTON — A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.
The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Yeah, and the African yellow-cake memo was confirmed authentic by British sources too.....
More 'anonymous sources'?
My anonymous sources in the Republican Party say this is old news.
"Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, the British intelligence service, reported on his meetings in Washington with senior Bush officials, who were never specified. At one point, Dearlove said, "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
"London was aware the State Department had studied how to deal with an invasion's aftermath."
So, which is it?
But several things are obvious:
The current Bush administration was certainly aware of the problems it would face. The previous Bush administration had pulled back from Baghdad in order to avoid them.
The Administration did not trust the career people at State...and did not want to have anything to do with their plans. Maybe this was correct or maybe it was ideological blindness and hubris.
There weren't any good answers as to what to do after the invasion. Take the Iraqi army for example. Dismiss it as we did and you get one set of problems. Retain it and you get another - the Left certainly would have said that we were supporting fascists as we always did, and the Shiites and Kurds would have complained that we were favoring the Sunnis in exchange for support of our oil policies.
Apparently, it is whatever Walter Pincus wishes it to be... this, that, or both.
Did we PLAN on occupying Japan?, rebuilding Europe. How many years have we been in Korea??
When has going to war and preparing for the aftermath of war ever been perfect?
Add: And when have'nt the Brits had a chorus of leftwing self-described experts all too eager to heap scorn on every action the "Yanks" make?
This is "Old Hat"!
Especially when they are in the throes of trying to defeat the PM.
"Add: And when have'nt the Brits had a chorus of leftwing self-described experts all too eager to heap scorn on every action the "Yanks" make?
This is "Old Hat"!"
And add: a chorus of rightwing Brits as well.
It is not a purely left vs right thing. I see that a number more than some in Britain operate out of the British vs American mode as well.
Yes. You're right. There is a decided tendency to discount Americans at all levels of British society.
I hear it's even worse for the Aussies who are still regarded as a combination Penal/Leper colony after all the years. (Lord knows what they think of Kiwis.)
Yes, but this time the sources are called "Washington".
Take your pick.
State kept Albright and Cohen out of Iraq.
Remember when they went to college campuses to sell the invasion? They caved like a house of cards.
It didn't help that Clinton continued to threaten bombs and war and then sat on his hands.
It is a different story for New Zealand. Perhaps because we are the most British of all former British colonies and our national identity is an extension of Britain, the Poms always look at us and consider we to be second home. Or conversely many of them treat us as "Colonials going Home [the British Isles] to learn the civilisation" and look down on us a brash students. It doesn't help that we still treat London as the centre of the world and New York is just a flyover city for Middle New Zealand.
Definitely Australians gets the worse treatment - it doesn't help that Australians keep their heads up when facing the Brits and they beat the Poms regularly in sports you name it. Canadians? They seem to be fairly invisible but I imagine they probably like the Canucks more than Aussies, at least culturally speaking. The special wrath is reserved for you Yanks: how dare an upstart colony surpass the Mother Country, the civilised country on everything? ;-)
A surprisingly apt and tidy reply. Many thanks. Perhaps I
left out the Canucks because of my two UCLA college roomates from Toronto...louts,ruffians..could have passed for Texans...except for their terrible drinking ballads.
The Toronto people I have met or read on the papers (MSM or otherwise) are all US Northeast liberals tagged with British snobbery and traditions. They happily sing "God save the Queen" while writing articles supporting gay "marriage".
But back to British people. I pity them - they still have conservative ideas at times but gradually they don't realize they are becoming just like Germans.
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