Rice was on Chris Mathews’ show “Hardball” last night. (link):
Rice said, “I think we had, when we went to war, having tried everything diplomatically to avoid war, I think when we went to war, we had a plan for how to deal with the aftermath. There were a number of things that surprised us, including the fact that the army, in a sense, kind of melted away in those last days after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.”
I thought that was what they wanted. Seems this was kinda the plan.
-CBS News Jan 24, 2003 (link): “They're calling it "A-Day," A as in airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam's soldiers unable or unwilling to fight.
"If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, this is more than number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War.
"On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles.
"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," said one Pentagon official who has been briefed on the plan.
"The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before," the official said.
"The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called 'Shock and Awe' and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.
"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided weapons.”
And then, remember this?
-CBS News March 17, 2003 (link): “All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing.
"For their own safety, all foreign nationals, including journalists and inspectors, should leave Iraq immediately.
"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you.
"As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need.
"We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.
"In free Iraq there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms.
"The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.
"It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraq military to act with honor and protect your country, by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed.
"I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services: If war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.
"And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."
-Geo. Bush-
(Please go back and read the entire speech. Listen to it’s tone, knowing what you know now, it’s chilling and such a stack of propaganda and lies.)
Of course there was this too.
-Washington Post November 20, 2003 (link):
“Before the war, President Bush approved a plan that would have put several hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers on the U.S. payroll and kept them available to provide security, repair roads and prepare for unforeseen postwar tasks. But that project was stopped abruptly in late May by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, who ordered the demobilization of Iraq's entire army, including largely apolitical conscripts.
"Bremer reversed himself a month later, but by then the occupation had lost not merely time and momentum but also credibility among former soldiers and their families, an important segment of Iraq's population.
"Now, the Americans are trying to recover -- including rehiring some of the same soldiers they demobilized -- at what one top Defense Department official called "warp speed." And while the administration's handling of the Iraqi army has been widely viewed as a fundamental decision of the occupation, a number of U.S. officials and analysts are saying it was fundamentally wrong.
"This was a mistake, to dissolve the army and the police," said Ayad Alawi, head of the security committee of the Iraqi Governing Council. "We absolutely not only lost time. The vacuum allowed our enemies to regroup and to infiltrate the country."
"Finally, last night Rice said, “And it's interesting, the report that Charles Duelfer did at the end when the Iraq Survey Group reported, showed that this was somebody who was never going to lose his connection to weapons of mass destruction, who continued to harbor ambitions, continued to try to keep certain capabilities in place.”
"Harbor ambitions? Did over 1700 American soldiers die because someone “harbored ambitions? That’s the justification for this war, the deaths, the expense? Sorry Condi, your excuses aren’t good enough, but that’s no real surprise; sadly it’s what we have come to expect from you.
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