Monday, October 20, 2003

Shelved State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq

Further confirmation of the Pentagon’s inept handling of Iraqi peace came to light last week with the release of a comprehensive State Department study which envisaged many of the tribulations that have beleaguered the American-led occupation of the troubled country. The State Department began drafting 2000 page report in April 2002, at a reported cost of some 5 million. The Department gathered together more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts into 17 working groups to study topics as diverse as creating a new justice system to reorganizing the Iraqi Army after the War to overhauling the Iraqi economy.

The working group’s conclusions for instance, painted a far more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems than many at the Pentagon were ready to admit. As a result the Pentagon (Rumsfeld & Wolfawitz), though the department denies it, shelved the report and the results of their short-sidedness and arrogance play out nightly on national television news broadcasts. Shall we renew the calls for Rumsfeld and Wolfawitz to resign? I say yes! What lessons can the Bush Administration learn from the deepening debacle, better yet what lessons can the American electorate learn from the inept leadership that brought us to this place?

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