Iraq on verge of genocidal war, warns ex-US official (Jay Garner) [View All]

[grytpype]

Source: Guardian Unlimited

Iraq on verge of genocidal war, warns ex-US official


Patrick Wintour
Monday June 18, 2007
The Guardian

The man who led the initial American effort to reconstruct Iraq after the war believes the country is on the brink of a genocidal civil war and its government will fall apart unless the US changes course and allows a three-way federal structure. He has also urged talks with Iran and other regional players.

Jay Garner, the former US general appointed two months before the invasion to head reconstruction in Iraq, admitted that before the 2003 war coordination between the various US departments and military had been disjointed.

He also disclosed that the US state department official in charge of postwar planning, Thomas Warrick, was prevented from joining his team by Donald Rumsfeld, who was defence secretary. He said he was shocked by the Pentagon's decision to reduce troop levels and disband the Iraqi army.

...

Mr Garner also admitted he did not see several of the plans prepared by the Bush administration and does not know why. He also revealed that he rang Mr Rumsfeld to tell him to stop reducing the US troop deployment and warned him that the consequent power vacuums were filling up with " fundamentalists". He also admits he was stunned by the decision in mid-May 2003 to disband the Iraqi army, saying at one stroke, it created a 200,000- strong armed opposition.

Read more: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2105443,00.html

---

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!


The total lack of Phase 4 planning is on the head of Rumsfeld.

Post-war planning non-existent

By WARREN P. STROBEL and JOHN WALCOTT
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Posted on Sun, Oct. 17, 2004

WASHINGTON - In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.

The slide said: "To Be Provided."

A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.

...

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9927782.htm

And we didn't have a plan because Rumsfeld personally put the kibosh on any attempt to make a plan!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009469.php

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.

Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."

...."In his own mind he thought we could go in and fight and take out the regime and come out. But a lot of us planners were having a real hard time with it because we were also thinking we can't do this. Once you tear up
a country you have to stay and rebuild it. It was very challenging."

I guess Rummy figured if they didn't plan for a long occupation there wouldn't be one.