US Post-War Planning for Iraq Almost Nonexistent

Government report says poor planning left Iraq without enough skilled workers to rebuild efficiently.
By Tom Regan csmonitor.comA report from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) says that poor postwar planning for Iraq by the Bush administration meant that there were not enough skilled workers available to properly rebuild Iraq's economy and public works.

The Associated Press reports that previous surveys by the Bush administration and congressional auditors blamed the insurgency and the high price of security for the lag in rebuilding Iraq.

"Pre-war reconstruction planning assumed that Iraq's bureaucracy would go back to work when the fighting stopped," it said. "When it became clear that the Iraqi bureaucracy was in widespread disarray," occupation authorities "had to find coalition personnel to perform these tasks."

"The US government workforce planning for Iraq's reconstruction suffered from a poorly structured, ad-hoc personnel management processes," the report said, calling hiring practices "haphazard."

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general, also recommended that the government establish a "civilian reserve corps" that could be deployed around the world to help rebuild areas devastated by war. Mr. Bowen's previous reports had examined how the Bush administration had handled the $30 billion in Iraqi funds – known as the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) – and the $24 billion the US has put into Iraq reconstruction.

The progressive opinion site TomPaine.com reports that Bowen and his team of investigators had already reported that the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA) had failed to ensure that the DFI funds were allocated properly, allowing massive fraud and abuse to take place.

The Washington Times reports that the Pentagon's original plans for reconstruction "crumbled when it encountered an unexpected foreign and domestic insurgency that looted the country, sabotaged electric and water service, and killed hundreds of Americans and Iraqis in 2003 after the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein."

The report also quotes a senior Pentagon official as saying that "the US government was not systemically structured to execute overseas reconstruction and stabilization programs." And pre-invasion planning was "naturally focused on military requirements."

The report from the SIGIR office confirms what previous media reports had already highlighted. In a piece from October 2004 entitled "Pre-war planning was non-existent," Knight Ridder reported on a meeting held at a US Air Force base just days before the start of the war in March 2003. The meeting was held to discuss the plans to oust Mr. Hussein and restore democracy in Iraq. When the presentation came to the subejct of postwar Iraq, the slide being shown said "To Be Provided."

The military's plan to defeat Saddam's army worked brilliantly and American troops have distinguished themselves on the battlefield. However, the review [conducted by Knight Ridder] found that the president and many of his advisers ignored repeated warnings that rebuilding Iraq would be harder than ousting Saddam and tossed out years of planning about how to rebuild Iraq, in part because they thought pro-American Iraqi exiles and Iraqi "patriots" would quickly pick up the pieces. The CIA predicted up until the war's opening days that the Iraqi army would turn against Saddam, which never happened.

A Newsweek analysis from September of 2003 highlighted the pre-invasion infighting that was taking place between the State Department and the Pentagon over what would happen after the Iraq invasion. On the day before he was supposed to go to Iraq, Gen. Jay Garner, the first man to head the Coalition Provisional Authority, got a call from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld telling him to drop 16 of the 20 State Department officials that were part of his original rebuilding team.

It seems that the State Department people were deemed to be Arabist apologists, or squishy about the United Nations, or in some way politically incorrect to the right-wing ideologues at the White House or the neocons in the office of the Secretary of Defense. The vetting process "got so bad that even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion," recalled one of Garner's team. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to stand up for his troops and stop Rumsfeld's meddling. "I can take hostages, too," Powell warned the secretary of Defense. "How hard do you want to play this thing?"

The Newsweek report said that Rumsfeld eventually won the argument over the role of the State Department, primarily with the backing of Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Associated Press also reports that Mr. Bowen, the inspector general, also criticized the administration for using only employees from the State and Defense Departments in Iraq. Bowen cited a "critical need" for a special corps of people who could deal with these postinvasion problems.

Legislation to create such a group had been submitted last year to Congress, but it did not pass. "The United States can deploy military people quite easily," said James P. Mitchell, spokesman for the inspector general's office. "But when they need to deploy civilians, it's very difficult and complicated and there is no system to do it."

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