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Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 12, 2005; Page A01
A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.
The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.
In its introduction, the memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."
The July 21 memo was produced by Blair’s staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial on both sides of the Atlantic since last month’s disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.
In those meeting minutes — which have come to be known as the Downing Street Memo — British officials who had just returned from Washington said Bush and his aides believed war was inevitable and were determined to use intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his relations with terrorists to justify invasion of Iraq.
The "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," said the memo — an assertion attributed to the then-chief of British intelligence, and denied by U.S. officials and by Blair at a news conference with Bush last week in Washington. Democrats in Congress led by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), however, have scheduled an unofficial hearing on the matter for Thursday.
Now, disclosure of the memo written in advance of that meeting — and other British documents recently made public — show that Blair’s aides were not just concerned about Washington’s justifications for invasion but also believed the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath.
In a section titled "Benefits/Risks," the July 21 memo states, "Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."
Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo’s authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."
That memo and other internal British government documents were originally obtained by Michael Smith, who writes for the London Sunday Times. Excerpts were made available to The Washington Post, and the material was confirmed as authentic by British sources who sought anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter.
The Bush administration’s failure to plan adequately for the postwar period has been well documented. The Pentagon, for example, ignored extensive State Department studies of how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government and rebuild the country. And administration officials have acknowledged the mistake of dismantling the Iraqi army and canceling pensions to its veteran officers — which many say hindered security, enhanced anti-U.S. feeling and aided what would later become a violent insurgency.
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can’t imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003.
The British, however, had begun focusing on doubts about a postwar Iraq in early 2002, according to internal memos.
A March 14 memo to Blair from David Manning, then the prime minister’s foreign policy adviser and now British ambassador in Washington, reported on talks with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Among the "big questions" coming out of his sessions, Manning reported, was that the president "has yet to find the answers . . . [and] what happens on the morning after."
About 10 days later, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote a memo to prepare Blair for a meeting in Crawford, Tex., on April 8. Straw said "the big question" about military action against Hussein was, "how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," as "Iraq has no history of democracy."
Straw said the U.S. assessments "assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq’s WMD [weapons of mass destruction] threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured. . . ."
Later in the summer, the postwar doubts would be raised again, at the July 23 meeting memorialized in the Downing Street Memo. Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, the British intelligence service, reported on his meetings with senior Bush officials. At one point, Dearlove said, "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, appearing June 5 on "Meet the Press," disagreed with Dearlove’s remark. "I think that there was clearly planning that occurred."
The Blair government, unlike its U.S. counterparts, always doubted that coalition troops would be uniformly welcomed, and sought U.N. participation in the invasion in part to set the stage for an international occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, said British officials interviewed recently. London was aware that the State Department had studied how to deal with an invasion’s aftermath. But the British government was "shocked," in the words of one official, "when we discovered that in the postwar period the Defense Department would still be running the show."
The Downing Street Memo has been the subject of debate since the London Sunday Times first published it May 1. Opponents of the war say it proved the Bush administration was determined to invade months before the president said he made that decision.
Neither Bush nor Blair has publicly challenged the authenticity of the July 23 memo, nor has Dearlove spoken publicly about it. One British diplomat said there are different interpretations.
Last week, it was the subject of questions posed to Blair and Bush during the former’s visit to Washington.
Asked about Dearlove being quoted as saying that in the United States, intelligence was being "fixed around the policy" of removing Hussein by military action, Blair said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." He then went on to discuss the British plan, outlined in the memo, to go to the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.
Bush said he had read "characterizations of the memo," pointing out that it was released in the middle of Blair’s reelection campaign, and that the United States and Britain went to the United Nations to exhaust diplomatic options before the invasion.
Forum posts
13 June 2005, 03:22
Just in case any of you haven’t heard, there was another Damning Street Memo released. This one even more damning than the last.
13 June 2005, 06:58
Well one thing is clear. Unless we keep pressing for responsiblity in the press, we have no democracy. If we comply with
a press that is owned and operated as a propaganda profit Psy Ops center for the corporations then we are living as
SUBJECTS of HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE President of the Corporation of American (GW and his sidekick Haley Burton)
Yep folks we need to take over the PRESS or they will make it and continue use it as an extension of their profit schemes.
Only the press that is owned by the TAX PAYING public and RUN by CITIZENS as it was in Ben Franklns time during the building
of the US could actually be called anything resembling a FREE DEMOCRACTIC PRESS.
Yes folks if we want democracy in the US, England, or any other economic developed country then the people need to
TAKE OVER THE MEDIA. That is the ROOT of POWER in a DEMOCRACY. PROTEST in front of CNN, FOX, and Clear Channel
and Make it clear EIther they are responsible PRESS or we are going to pass a constitutional amendment to Take over all media
and make it a PUBLIC RUN and CONTROLLED instituion as it SHOULD BE. Come on folks if you want a democracy you need to
be able to do a little more than change channels with your REMOTE. You need to make sure that when you tune in to the NEWS
channel that it is a reflection of the PUBLIC needs in a DEMOCRACY and not the PROFIT NEEDS of the corporations!
7b out. Peace.
13 June 2005, 20:26
Considering how they ignored reporting the Downing Street Memo, it’s interesting to see all the America media outlets making front page news of this new memo that softens the warmonger image of Bush in the "Downing Street Memo."
Whereas the DSM says that Bush was determined to make the war happen by whatever means possible, the newly reported UK memo story says that Bush and his aides only "believed" the war was inevitable,
Speaking as a natural skeptic, I gladly note that Bush has moved from ignoring the DSM to calling it the farthest thing from the truth. (Funny, I’d say that Bush himself is the farthest thing from the truth.) When presidents resort to direct denials, they are getting desperate. Look back at Nixon’s "I am not a crook" and Clinton’s "I did not not have a sexual relationship with that women."
Watch next for Dubya to try pulling a Reagan-style claim of innocence by admitting the war was based on false intelligence not his fault (he’s already setting up the CIA to take the fall). but that "in his heart" he knows that the war was true and right. He won’t be able to pull it off like Reagan, but it will be entertaining to see him sweat.
Bush’s support group of radical self-proclaimed evangelicals love hearing that "in my heart, I know it’s right" as a means to justify anything. I predict that they will start jumping ship and distancing themselves from Bush before the year is out.
15 June 2005, 01:57
Wisconsin Democratic Party Request Impeachment
Saturday afternoon during their annual State Convention at the Park Plaza in downtown Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin adopted the following resolution:
CALLING ON THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS TO INITIATE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS AGAINST PRESIDENT BUSH, VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY AND DEFENSE SECRETARY RUMSFELD FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
29 June 2005, 09:02
The Christian religion has become the largest hate group in America.
15 June 2005, 19:22
More good news folks!
The Downing Street Hearings have been moved to the Capitol and there will be a live audio stream! More information over at Daily Dissent
It’s a beautiful day. :)
16 June 2005, 05:29
AAAHHH, YESSSSS. THE DEMENTED DESPERATION OF THE LEFT. IT’S A BEAUTIFUL THING.:)
16 June 2005, 10:54
It’s not about left or right you bozo. This is about saving your country and your sorry ass. If you can’t see what’s being done in your country (or to your country) then you are a fool.
17 June 2005, 02:04
You have to be patient with 68.***.163.*** because the stupid Freeper is still trying to understand how his daddy is also his uncle. (See WAKE the F*CK UP: **Stop Election Fraud, 15th June 2005 - 05h28 Post.) But at least ’Free-pee’ 68.***.163.*** no longer has periods of spitting out all those periods. (See WAKE the F*CK UP: **Stop Election Fraud, 15th June 2005 - 05h03 Post.)
Now, I told you before, 68.***.163.***, YOU KEEP BRUSHING THAT TOOTH, or else it will fall out, too, and your lisp will just keep getting worse!
(Damned Freepers, nowadays! You have to keep reminding them continually of everything!)
Just have a little patience, there, 82.**.147.***, and the little Freeper will soon take its medication and, chances are, its mama/aunt will find it a new venue for again trying to molest other decent people like you.
BEWARE 68.***.163.***, EVERYBODY! IT’S ANOTHER FREEPING MOLESTER - - I mean, ANOTHER MOLESTING FREEPER - - I mean, HE’S ANOTHER FREEPER WHO ATTEMPTS TO MOLEST DECENT PEOPLE!
By the way, 68.***.163.***, there’s been a huge announcement that Jeff Gannon/Guckert is open for business again for all you Freepers. The way your Repunklican party has it marketed is: "COME one, COME all, all you little ’Free-pees’! Jeffy is back in the saddle again, kickin’ up his heels, and lickin’ his chops! So everybody just lean on over, and Jeffy will be glad to drive you home!"
So y’all have a nice day, now; y’heah, 68.***.163.***?!
17 June 2005, 02:31
Check this out... an 8 page pdf of John Conyers’ letter to the President with the Congressional signatures. Download and save a litte piece of history.
19 June 2005, 02:12
Hi All
Do any of you really believe that we are living in a democracy anymore. I think it would be more accurate to lable it a post democratic state. Neither in England or America do anyone but the power elite hold the reins of power and this memo while daming won’t in the end change a thing. Sure in the end some politician might have to resign but another with similar fascist views will simply take his place. The real reins of power are in the banks and corporations and it is they who really control countries. Democracy is dead. The war is a lie. But we can do little about it.
Danny from England
23 June 2005, 00:55
Dear Danny - my heart goes out to you. I, too, feel it’s too late. But something said in Angels in America was uplifting to me — "And only in politics does the miraculous occur."
It is true. Let’s take strength from the Ukraine, and Venezuela. If nothing else - history proves time and again there will be uprisings against oppressive governments. It just seems hopeless, now, but it can change - miraculously.
Try to focus on other countries that are resisting the global corporation and succeeding; read history - know there is hope.
Nadine in California
29 June 2005, 12:17
Since the end of the Cold War, capitalism, or the ’free market’ has a free reign.
The remaining armies, security services, and governments needed to justify their huge expenditure. The Military Industrial Complex gold field. What to do?
’’I know, let’s create the notion of Global Terrorism. Paranoia. Surveillance.’’
’’Brilliant ! We can go round the world bombing the fuck, and stealing, and make the idiot taxpayers pay for it ! ’’
’’And the fucking beauty of it -we’re accountable to no one !’’
’’Yeah, but we’re gonna have to pretend theres fair elections and shit to keep the proles happy’’
’’No problem, my mate’s got this company Diebold.....’’