State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq

October 20, 2003 9:33 AM

Beginning in April 2002, the State Department project assembled more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts... to study topics ranging from creating a new justice system to reorganizing the military to revamping the economy. Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems... warned... many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society. Several officials said that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials until recently... The work is now being relied on heavily as occupation forces struggle to impose stability in Iraq.
posted by y2karl (9 comments total)

Everyone knows diplomacy is for pussies. Now it appears everything else about the State Department (including planning for postwar looting and chaos) has been anathema to the Chen-Rum-Rice-Bush Axis.
posted by kozad at 9:43 AM on October 20, 2003

another instance where they knew the truth, but told us lies anyway to sell the war...
posted by amberglow at 9:48 AM on October 20, 2003

You'd think they would let Colin Powell in on the planning sessions.
posted by ilsa at 10:18 AM on October 20, 2003

If you saw Frontline's excellent program "Truth, War and Consequences", you saw State's working group in action. You saw them talk about all the things we'd have to do to get Iraq from descending to chaos. You saw the depth and bredth of the plan, which covered everything from Iraqi national security to garbage collection. You then saw this plan dropped like a brick by the current heads of the CPA.

Why haven't we demanded and gotten Rumsfeld's, Wolfowitz's and Pearle's heads up on spikes in the National Mall?
posted by RakDaddy at 10:26 AM on October 20, 2003

Kozad, is that the REAL Axis of Evil??
posted by Beansidhe at 10:50 AM on October 20, 2003

It appears that intelligence is at fault again .... not the gathering of but rather the ability to listen to voices other than those self-contained
posted by ElvisJesus at 10:51 AM on October 20, 2003

How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.
posted by homunculus at 11:14 AM on October 20, 2003

Why haven't we demanded and gotten Rumsfeld's, Wolfowitz's and Pearle's heads up on spikes in the National Mall?

Because the Republicans are too busy working out how to blame Bill Clinton and the Democrats are still afraid to draw attention to themselves. But yeah, "Truth, War, and Consequences" should be required viewing for all Americans who actually give a fuck. The 60 Minutes II distillation of same wasn't bad either.
posted by badstone at 12:31 PM on October 20, 2003

At least all our hard work over there is finally showing some results, though.
posted by soyjoy at 1:34 PM on October 20, 2003