Bremer Blames Bush, Rumsfeld

[dogday]

By Meredeth Mackenzie
Washington (UPI) Jan 16, 2006



Former Coalition Provisional Authority boss L Paul Bremer is now trashing the Bush administration for its mistakes in Iraq, but even his public statements are inconsistent with what he wrote in his new book of memoirs.
In his new book of memoirs, "My Year in Iraq", Bremer is highly critical of decisions made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, especially those concerning U.S. troop levels and the allocation of resources for battling the early Sunni Muslim insurgency.

Bremer reveals in the book a policy conflict between administration officials particularly, Rumsfeld and then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, over the number of troops needed in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces in spring 2003. He also makes frequent reference to a study by the RAND Corporation that recommended tripling the U.S. troop levels that were sent to Iraq. That recommendation -- which urged troop levels of around 400,000 in Iraq, was also ignored by the administration.

Also in the book, Bremer is not afraid to reveal his frank conversations with President George W. Bush expressing his doubts about U.S. military strategy in Iraq. But his warnings, he wrote, were not heeded. Bremer was also critical of restrictions and regulations dictating procedure for government re-construction contracts.

http://www.spacewar.com/news/Bremer_Blames_Bush_Rumsfeld.html

[MrModerate]

1. I was there when Bremer was there, and . . .

One thing they never figured out was that the hundreds of small armories scattered all over the country (with their endless supplies of automatic rifles, ammunition, explosives, and electronic hardware) when added up, equaled "Weapons of Mass Destruction."

By this I mean that if you provide an AK-47 to everyone in the community who wants one, you'll see PLENTY of destruction -- one victim at a time; if you make it easy to buy explosives (back when it was safe to go into the marketplaces, I saw piles of the stuff literally lying on the streets, and it was cheaper, by weight, than lumber), then people will start blowing each other up; if you fail to secure military goods througout an occupied country, that country will inevitably descend into insurgent-led chaos.

While our military was being directed on a wild-goose chase for nonexistant weapons of mass destruction, the bad guys were walking into unguarded armories all over the country and equipping themselves for the long fight.

Which they're fighting to this day.

[dogday]

2. Kicked-Brenner on CNN right now