From today's New York Times...another excellent column from Tom Friedman. I couldn't agree more. OP-ED COLUMNIST Bad Planning By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN President Bush is sure lucky no weapons of mass destruction have been found yet in Iraq. Because had we found these weapons our entire focus today would be on the real issue: why the Bush team — which wanted this war so badly and had telegraphed it for so long — was so poorly prepared for postwar Iraq. I still believe that with the right effort Iraq can be made a decent place. But that task has been made much harder because of the Pentagon's poor planning for postwar Iraq. If the Pentagon's lapses can be overcome — and I hope they will be — then we should learn from them for future wars. If they can't be overcome, then they will be grist for next year's who-lost-Iraq debate. Let's start with the biggest analytical failure. The Bush Pentagon went into this war assuming that it could decapitate the Iraqi army, bureaucracy and police force, remove the Saddam loyalists and then basically run Iraq through the rump army, bureaucracy and police. Wrong. What happened instead was that they all collapsed, leaving a security and administrative vacuum, which the U.S. military was utterly unprepared to fill. The U.S. forces arrived in Iraq with far too few military police and civilian affairs officers to run the country. As a result, the only way U.S. troops could stop the massive looting was by doing the only thing they knew how: shooting people. Since they didn't want to do that, and since Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld seemed to believe that a little looting was O.K., so that Iraqis could let off steam ("stuff happens"), Iraqi government infrastructure, oil equipment and even nuclear research sites were just stripped bare. As a result, we are not just starting at zero in Iraq. We are starting below zero. (How the Pentagon could have failed to secure the known nuclear sites is unbelievable.) Anyone familiar with NATO operations in Bosnia and Kosovo should have understood that we needed two armies for this invasion. The first was the fighting force that would kill Saddam's regime, and the second, following right behind it, a force of military police, civilian affairs officers, aid groups and public affairs teams to get our message across. The Pentagon brilliantly prepared the first force, but not the second. So, you get incidents like the one last week, where hungry Iraqi soldiers, protesting for back pay, get shot at by U.S. troops — a great way to win friends — because our troops are unprepared for crowd control, a job for M.P.'s. Most of the police and M.P.'s we send into nation-building are reserves, and there was already a shortage — something the Pentagon should have seen and rectified by reconfiguring our force structure. Because we did not have enough soldiers, police or M.P.'s in Iraq, we could not seal the Syrian or Iranian borders or protect oil pipelines from sabotage. As a result, Arab fighters have slipped in via Syria to join the battle against us and Iranian activists have crossed from their side. Oil pipelines are being blown up daily. As for the missing W.M.D., Bush officials keep saying that Iraq is the size of California and hard to search. True, but Saddam's inner circle is the size of an N.F.L. team — and we've captured more than half of them. I find it incomprehensible that none of them have had anything revealing to say, one way or another, about the missing W.M.D. A tarot card reader could have discovered more from these people than the Pentagon has so far. A Western diplomat tells me Centcom has not managed the interrogations well and they are now in the hands of the C.I.A. Because the Pentagon had no coherent postwar plan for reconstituting Iraq politically, it made it up as it went along. Instead of a firm U.S. hand guiding things from the top, the Pentagon initially appointed the hapless Gen. Jay Garner to run Iraq. He's been replaced by the more deft L. Paul Bremer, but important time has been lost in which Muslim clerics have filled the vacuum in many areas. We must establish an Iraqi secular authority — soon. A successful U.S. rebuilding of Iraq is the key to America's standing in the world right now. But Mssrs. Bush and Rumsfeld seem to be treating it like some lab test in which they can see how much nation-building they can buy with as little investment as possible. As one Marine officer said to me: There is something to be said for doing war on the cheap, but if you want to do war on the cheap, "pick a country that doesn't matter."
Iraqis Killed UK Soldiers Over Searches -Residents By Michael Georgy MAJJAR, Iraq (Reuters) - Irate Iraqis shot dead six British soldiers and wounded eight others in clashes around this southern Shi'ite town, with animosity fueled by arms searches of residents' homes, local Iraqi witnesses said on Wednesday. British military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ronnie McCourt said the killing of the six military police in Majjar on Tuesday was unprovoked, adding: "It was murder." Witnesses and residents said four Iraqis were killed and 14 wounded in the clashes in Majjar, 18 miles south of the city of Amarah. The British soldiers, training local police, were killed inside a police station, McCourt said near Amarah, 210 miles southeast of Baghdad. He gave no other details. In the second incident, seven troops were wounded when a British helicopter was fired on as it went to aid a military convoy under attack. A British soldier in the convoy was wounded. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said troops may have run into trouble as they tried to disarm local Iraqis. "There is a background to do with the attempts by British forces to make sure the local population...were disarmed of those weapons," Blair told parliament. But Blair said it was too early to say what happened in Majjar, in what appeared to be the worst casualties suffered by British forces in a single "hostile fire" incident since the war to oust Saddam Hussein erupted on March 20. Residents and witnesses said Tuesday's clashes followed days of resentment over efforts to disarm Iraqis, and the shooting erupted after the British forces fired plastic bullets to try to control thousands of protesters. The witnesses said the Iraqis, believing the British were firing live bullets, fired AK-47 assault rifles, killing the soldiers. "I yelled at them because they pointed their rifles at a child. I told them 'don't do that' but a soldier hit me with the butt of his rifle in the face," one resident, who refused to give his name, said. "Then the shooting started." IRAQI'S SIMMERING ANGER Residents and witnesses said anger had been simmering as the British used sniffer dogs and aggressively searched local homes. "These British soldiers came with their dogs and pointed weapons at women and children. As Muslims, we can't accept dogs at our homes," Rabee al-Malki told Reuters. Muslims take offence over dogs in their homes, believing the animals to be impure. Other residents criticized methods of the British occupiers, and alleged incidents involving soldiers during the searches. "A British soldier held the underwear of a woman and stretched it. How can we accept this as Muslims and as Shi'ites," resident Faleh Saleem said. McCourt, saying British forces were now on heightened alert in the region, acknowledged the Majjar deaths had changed the situation: "The emotion here is deep, deep disappointment among the soldiers. It has changed. SABOTEURS The top U.S. administrator in Iraq said on Wednesday saboteurs linked to Saddam had cut off power lines to Baghdad, depriving the war-weary Iraqi capital of electricity. Much of Baghdad has gone without water or electricity in recent days, adding to the hardship of people coping with severe unemployment and a lack of public safety. "The problem is due to sabotage of the main power line between Beiji and Baghdad," Paul Bremer, leader of the provisional authority in Iraq, told a news conference. "Almost certainly the saboteurs are rogue Baathist elements. They are trying to hinder the coalition efforts to make life better for the average Iraqi person," he said, referring to Saddam's Baath Party.
Another annoying speaking out of both sides of his mouth article from Friedman. He supported the war against Islam and Iraq, though he at times, sort of like Dubya did for months, tries to pretend he didn't. He wants to say that not finding wmd is no big deal to him but he can't say it straight out and pretend to be a bit of a liberal and a non Wolfowitz/ Perle guy. Now he wants to appear that he is neutral on the occupation and he distances himself a bit by criticizing the post war. As usual everyone is dumb, but Friedman as he now sneakily supports the Wolfowitz/ Perle crowd in the occupation of Iraq till it fits the neocon model.
