New rule: If you are a senior public official in the United States government and you are forced to admit that "no one could have foreseen or anticipated" things that it was your job to foresee, you are a moron.
Today's exhibit: Paul Wolfowitz.
"I think I said in my comments quoting Doug's book, no one anticipated this insurgency, a lot of people were slow to recognize it once it started," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "And I do think a real failure -- I assign responsibility all over the place -- was not having enough reliable Iraqi troops early enough and fast enough, because I think a sensible counterinsurgency strategy would not be to flood the country with 300,000 Americans, but rather to build up Iraqi forces among the population."
This is Abu Muqawama's area of expertise, so I'm going to outsource my response to him:
There's just so much in that paragraph alone into which Abu Muqawama could sink his teeth. Let's start with that bit about not anticipating an insurgency. It dawns on this blogger that contingency-planning would have been something in which both Doug and Paul (the Pentagon's #3 and #2, respectively) might have taken some interest.
Second, about those Iraqi forces... Well that's a good plan, Paul. Building up security forces is certainly a big part of any sensible counter-insurgency campaign. And since you are talking about building up those security forces, we take it to mean that you were cool with the part where we disbanded the Iraqi Army in 2003. That's fine. But one question: while we're building up the Iraqi Army, who provides security to a nation the size of California in the meantime? Is this Iraqi Army just going to miracle itself into existence?... Abu Muqawama sits, stares at the computer for a second, and then yells, to the alarm of everyone in a 50-meter radius:
%$#@!!! %$$$$$$$$#@! I can't believe they allowed you to be in charge of %$#@ing anything, much less be the number %$#@ing two -- TWO! -- man in the %$#@ing Pentagon! What! The! %$$$$$#@!
(Abu Muqawama takes a deep breath, holds it, exhales, regains his composure. Onlookers remain horrified.)
...
Sorry about that. This post was just humming along, and Abu Muqawama was trying to make reasonable criticisms in his usual snarky tone and then. he. just. lost it. Because he remembered Paul "The Absent-Minded Professor" Wolfowitz, a man who couldn't plan a two-car funeral, was once in a position of great power in the Department of Defense at the most crucial time in the world's history since the end of the Cold War. Abu Muqawama needs to take some time off here because there is no way he can offer you dispassionate analysis for the rest of the day. This is like that time that he lost it and (unfairly) called Fred Kagan a chickenhawk. Anything he has left will be similarly based on 100% raw emotion.
But let him leave you all with this question: has America ever been as poorly served by its leaders as it was between 2001 and 2005?
No one could have predicted that the invasion and occupation of an oil rich Arab nation by the United States would lead to an insurgency? I mean... wow.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
