A Project ...A War...and a Country

Over the years I always have to check myself when I go to Lowes or Home Depot.Reason is that the very best part off any project is the early part. During the early part of a project you get to come up with the idea and then you get to go and buy all the tools and parts to assemble...really all men like this part. But what happens is that you get home and into the previously conceived idea that made so much since in your mind but now it becomes a real slog. Digging the holes or sanding the wall or the dreaded painting of the whole thing gets really bad. So then that project starts to wane with the old enthusiasm ....solution is to find another project.

I really hate to over simplify a really serious matter but it seems to me that our boys the Bush,Cheney,Rumsfeld Group (BCRG) did just this sort of thing in going into Iraq. They were very excited about going into that dysfunctional country,had some good motives and got part of it right and then .....really made some terrible decisions.

The idea that WMD were present had some validity at one point in the ramp up to the invasion. But by October of 2002 they knew that there was no nuclear threat. But the BCRG pressed on and continued the project even though they knew the facts and didn't tell us. So, getting all the men and supplies together and moving them all to that part of the world proceeded and all the big talk about how this and that had to change or we were going to come over and change your regime. This really was the easy part.

We invade and have a "Mission Accomplished" event on an aircraft carrier. BCRG says it was the Navy that posted the sign or that it was for that specific part of the overall mission. Over time this sign posting during a speech by Bush would prove to be a serious blunder because it indicated a certain lack of understanding concerning what they were facing or what was coming up next. At this point BCRG thought the Iraq police would provide security and they also thought they would be out of country in a relatively short time. And, although they appointed a post combat bureaucrat for the now defeated country late ( he,Garner,only had 90 days to prepare for the post war management of this country) the BCRG got rid of him within weeks of his arrival.

Their project continues and we are all here at home waiting for the WMD to somehow appear and they never will. BCRG appoints Bremer to run things in Iraq and upon arrival he makes two serious mistakes....he refuses to keep the Iraqi army together...and pay them and he refuses to keep the Bathists in place to run things. Really not 20/20 hindsight on my part on these two issues because BCRG had people telling them to keep these structure in place....BCRG just had no curiosity to listen. Bush as it turns out had gone to business school and knew he shouldn't micromanage. But, is version of that was to delegate EVERYTHING. That leaves it to Cheny and Rumsfeld to run EVERYTHING. At some point BCRG should have put some time and money into post war Iraq thinking. They really didn't. And, what little post war thinking that took place was removed in short order. Then we had Bremer literally working this project on the fly and flailing about while the accomplished mission turned into the lost peace.

It was all very poorly managed. It has cost too many lives and too much money and shows what happens when your top managers , BCRG, either think they have all the answers or don't have the brains to ask the questions.