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05-23-2005, 07:38 AM
Analyst spells out flaws in Iraq plan
Faults leaks, failure to prepare for aftermath
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
5/22/2005
WASHINGTON -
Tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and military planners over the staying power of Saddam Hussein's regime, leaks of highly classified war plans and little attention to the war's aftermath hampered planning for the Iraq war, according to a new insider account.
Near-constant demands from Rumsfeld and his aides for new versions of the war plan using fewer American troops wasted time and diverted attention from fleshing out a blueprint for the March 2003 invasion, Gregory Hooker, a top intelligence analyst at the U.S. military's Central Command, writes in an account published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Civilians in Washington, convinced that Saddam's regime would topple easily, "injected numerous ideas into the dialogue, many of which were amateurish and unrealistic," Hooker writes.
Many of those ideas were discarded, but the conflicting approaches were not resolved before the invasion, he says.
The cover of the study identifies Hooker as the Central Command's senior intelligence analyst for Iraq. He has done several stints in the country, including one as a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s.
Hooker's report echoes other assessments of the run-up to the war in Iraq, but constitutes one of the first on-the-record accounts by someone in his position as a military intelligence analyst. It was issued amid renewed debate over the future of Iraq, where the interim government faces a continuing insurgency and rising ethnic tensions.
Hooker adds some new details.
He reveals, for example, that some officers at the Florida-based Central Command were so stunned by leaks of the classified war plans to the news media that they assumed they were part of a U.S. propaganda campaign to unsettle Saddam.
"To some planners, this theory seemed the only logical way to explain the seemingly outrageous and reckless revelations of classified material by senior officials," he wrote.
In fact, the leaks apparently were part of a battle among top policymakers in Washington over whether to invade Iraq with a relatively small force and lightning-quick maneuvers, as many Pentagon civilians favored, or the larger, more traditional force that senior generals preferred.
Hooker also criticizes the planning for postwar Iraq, which he says got little attention in planning sessions and war games.
Postwar planning, he writes, was divided among civilian agencies and, unlike combat operations, lacked an overall commander or explicit plan. "This turmoil was evident to CENTCOM planners," he adds.
Despite several calls and e-mails, Central Command had no comment on the study. The Pentagon also declined to comment.
In a speech Wednesday night, President Bush made a rare acknowledgment that preparations for postwar Iraq were lacking.
"You know, one of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that, while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of U.S. government civilians," Bush said in a speech to the International Republican Institute.
"The process of recruiting and staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority was lengthy, and it was difficult," he said, referring to the U.S.-led body that ran Iraq until the return of sovereignty last June.
Since the war, the State Department has established an office to oversee reconstruction in post-conflict areas.
Before a Senate panel last month, Rumsfeld defended the administration's prewar planning and the size of the invasion force.
"The more troops you have, the more of an occupying power you are," he maintained. "The heavier the footprint, the more force protection you need, the more logistics you need and the more intrusive you are on the people of that country."
Much of Hooker's study critiques intelligence provided to the war planners. He says his group - as well as the rest of the intelligence community - failed to predict the rapid rise of an anti-American insurgency, expecting instead that Saddam's removal quickly would prompt sectarian violence.
"The (intelligence) estimate generally failed to predict the nature and severity of security challenges," he writes. "Sectarian violence was, in fact, minimal, while the growth of the insurgency was rapid."
--Hmmm...You mean all that talk of the Iraqi Militai was overblown?
While some predictions about Iraq's response to an American invasion were accurate, others were not, according to Hooker.
The Central Command's intelligence analysts failed to predict that many Iraq army units simply would melt away, he says, while expectations that Iraq would destroy its own oil infrastructure were overblown, in part because U.S. special forces secured key fields in the war's opening hours.
www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050522/1068572.asp
Faults leaks, failure to prepare for aftermath
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
5/22/2005
WASHINGTON -
Tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and military planners over the staying power of Saddam Hussein's regime, leaks of highly classified war plans and little attention to the war's aftermath hampered planning for the Iraq war, according to a new insider account.
Near-constant demands from Rumsfeld and his aides for new versions of the war plan using fewer American troops wasted time and diverted attention from fleshing out a blueprint for the March 2003 invasion, Gregory Hooker, a top intelligence analyst at the U.S. military's Central Command, writes in an account published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Civilians in Washington, convinced that Saddam's regime would topple easily, "injected numerous ideas into the dialogue, many of which were amateurish and unrealistic," Hooker writes.
Many of those ideas were discarded, but the conflicting approaches were not resolved before the invasion, he says.
The cover of the study identifies Hooker as the Central Command's senior intelligence analyst for Iraq. He has done several stints in the country, including one as a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s.
Hooker's report echoes other assessments of the run-up to the war in Iraq, but constitutes one of the first on-the-record accounts by someone in his position as a military intelligence analyst. It was issued amid renewed debate over the future of Iraq, where the interim government faces a continuing insurgency and rising ethnic tensions.
Hooker adds some new details.
He reveals, for example, that some officers at the Florida-based Central Command were so stunned by leaks of the classified war plans to the news media that they assumed they were part of a U.S. propaganda campaign to unsettle Saddam.
"To some planners, this theory seemed the only logical way to explain the seemingly outrageous and reckless revelations of classified material by senior officials," he wrote.
In fact, the leaks apparently were part of a battle among top policymakers in Washington over whether to invade Iraq with a relatively small force and lightning-quick maneuvers, as many Pentagon civilians favored, or the larger, more traditional force that senior generals preferred.
Hooker also criticizes the planning for postwar Iraq, which he says got little attention in planning sessions and war games.
Postwar planning, he writes, was divided among civilian agencies and, unlike combat operations, lacked an overall commander or explicit plan. "This turmoil was evident to CENTCOM planners," he adds.
Despite several calls and e-mails, Central Command had no comment on the study. The Pentagon also declined to comment.
In a speech Wednesday night, President Bush made a rare acknowledgment that preparations for postwar Iraq were lacking.
"You know, one of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that, while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of U.S. government civilians," Bush said in a speech to the International Republican Institute.
"The process of recruiting and staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority was lengthy, and it was difficult," he said, referring to the U.S.-led body that ran Iraq until the return of sovereignty last June.
Since the war, the State Department has established an office to oversee reconstruction in post-conflict areas.
Before a Senate panel last month, Rumsfeld defended the administration's prewar planning and the size of the invasion force.
"The more troops you have, the more of an occupying power you are," he maintained. "The heavier the footprint, the more force protection you need, the more logistics you need and the more intrusive you are on the people of that country."
Much of Hooker's study critiques intelligence provided to the war planners. He says his group - as well as the rest of the intelligence community - failed to predict the rapid rise of an anti-American insurgency, expecting instead that Saddam's removal quickly would prompt sectarian violence.
"The (intelligence) estimate generally failed to predict the nature and severity of security challenges," he writes. "Sectarian violence was, in fact, minimal, while the growth of the insurgency was rapid."
--Hmmm...You mean all that talk of the Iraqi Militai was overblown?
While some predictions about Iraq's response to an American invasion were accurate, others were not, according to Hooker.
The Central Command's intelligence analysts failed to predict that many Iraq army units simply would melt away, he says, while expectations that Iraq would destroy its own oil infrastructure were overblown, in part because U.S. special forces secured key fields in the war's opening hours.
www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050522/1068572.asp