20/20 Foresight: Iraq Quagmire Warned Long Before Invasion

Published on September 20, 2004 By blogic In Politics

From http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6271844:

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's foreign secretary and senior officials warned Prime Minister Tony Blair a year before invading Iraq that chaos could follow the toppling of Saddam Hussein, a newspaper said Saturday.

The Daily Telegraph said that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sent a letter marked "secret and personal" to Blair in March 2002 warning that no one had prepared for what might happen afterwards.

Lately, I find many Bush supporters arguing that critics of the situation in Iraq are simply making use of 20/20 hindsight.

The reality is that many experts warned, long before the invasion, that the occupation would be far more difficult than Bush was admitting, or for which he was planning.

For example, Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who was the head of Central Command from 1997 to 2000, was U.S. special envoy to the Middle East for Colin Powell from November 2002 to March 2003, and is an expert on the region, opposed the war precisely because Bush wasn't willing to commit anywhere near the necessary number of occupation troops.

You may also remember that the former Army Chief of Staff, retired General Eric Shinseki, testified before the invasion that Bush's plan used far too few troops. See CBS News and the Stanford Daily.

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on Nov 02, 2004

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