Top Secret Polo Step

Here is a fascinating look into what a top secret nation building scheme looks like. Man, things are not going according to plan.

here:

The PowerPoint slides, prepared by CentCom planners for Gen. Tommy Franks under code name POLO STEP, for briefings during 2002 for President Bush, the NSC, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the JCS, and Franks' commanders, refer to the "Phase IV" post-hostilities period as "UNKNOWN" and "months" in duration, but assume that U.S. forces would be almost completely "re-deployed" out of Iraq within 45 months of the invasion (i.e. December 2006).

"Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," said National Security Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton. "First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by 'D-Day', then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners, and finally that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere 'months'. All of these were delusions."

Comments

[Swiss Miss]

I did a report on post war planning in Iraq for one of my classes. It seems that the civilian leaders (Rumsfeld) deliberately and stubbornly kept the State Department out of any planning for post war Iraq. The DoD wanted to bring them on board, as well as the CIA, to get a more realistic view of what the situation was likely to be after the war, but Rumsfeld made it clear that he did not want State or CIA anywhere near reconstruction planning. It was speculated by some prominent commentators that this was done because Rumsfeld viewed any negative commentaries on reconstruction Iraq as biased against war.