The Bush Administration’s Iraq Policy

Poor Judgment, Poor Preparation

Bush Administration: Failed to Plan for the War and Aftermath

“We are paying the price for the lack of credible planning, or the lack of a plan. Ten years worth of planning were thrown away, troop levels dismissed out of hand. . . These were strategic mistakes, mistakes of policy made back here.” Marine General (Retired) Anthony Zinni, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; Meet the Press, 4/2/06.

“What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures.” – Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, Top Operations Officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commanding General, First Marine Division; Time Magazine, 4/17/06.

“They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda.” – Lieutenant General John Riggs, Director, Objective Force Task Force and Commanding General of 1st U.S. Army; National Public Radio, 4/13/06.

“They pressed for open warfare before the diplomacy was finished. It was a tragic mistake. It’s a strategic blunder.” – General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO and Commander, US Southern Command; Fox News 4/15/06.

"In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption." -- Marine General (Retired) Anthony Zinni, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; in the book about his career, “Battle Ready,” published May 2004

"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss." -- General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, May 20, 2004

Bush Administration: Incompentent Leadership at the Top

“Rumsfeld and his team turned what should have been a deliberate victory in Iraq into a prolonged challenge.” Major General John Batiste, Commander, 1st Division in Iraq and Chief Military Aide to Paul Wolfowitz; National Journal, 5/6/06.

“I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war, based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq.” – Major General Charles H. Swannack, Jr., Commander, 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq; New York Times, 4/16/06.

“If I was President I would have relieved him three years ago.” - Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper on Secretary Rumsfeld; The Washington Post, 4/15/06.

“Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces…his failure to build coalitions with our allies .. has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary...he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically.”– Major General Paul Eaton, Commander, Coalition Military Assistance Training Team; New York Times, 3/19/06.

Bush Administration: Sent Inadequate Numbers of Troops

“Wildly off the mark” -- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz responding to the estimate by the Army's chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops;  testimony to the House Budget Committee, February 27, 2003

“I think we got in there with a grossly anemic military force. We never defeated the elite elements of the Saddam regime. They walked away with their guns, their money, their leadership intact.” -- Retired General Barry McCaffrey; NPR “Morning Edition,” April 15, 2004

Bush Administration: Did Not Adequately Protect or Train our Troops

“A breakdown of the casualty figures suggests that many U.S. deaths and wounds in Iraq simply did not need to occur…perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them, the study suggested.” -- Newsweek on a Department of Defense commissioned report; May 3, 2004

"Where are we, the American people,…if we accept this level of sacrifice without that level of planning?” -- Marine General (Retired) Anthony Zinni, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, September 4, 2003

“This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential -- even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.” -- Army Times, May 10, 2004

Bush Administration: Severely Misjudged How a U.S. Occupation Would be Received

"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months." -- Vice President Dick Cheney; Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

"We had a plan that anticipated, I think, that we could proceed with an occupation regime for much longer than it turned out the Iraqis would have patience for. We had a plan that assumed we'd have basically more stable security conditions than we've encountered." -- Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz; Testimony at Senate Foreign Relations Committee; May 18, 2004

Bush Administration: Severely Misjudged the Cost

"There's a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." -- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Atlantic Monthly, March 27, 2003

“In addition, the Congress has appropriated about $150 billion in military and reconstruction funding for the Iraq conflict.  That figure will grow to well over $200 billion by the end of fiscal year 2005.”  -- Iraq in Crisis, Democratic Staff of the House Appropriations Committee report, May 20, 2004

Bush Administration:  Doesn’t Know Who the Enemy Is, Misjudged Its “Friends”

"The [Pentagon intelligence] report, completed March 26, was commissioned to answer a simple but provocative question: in Iraq, who is the adversary?" -- New York Times, April 29, 2004

"No Iraqi leader has had more to do with the U.S. intervention in Iraq than Chalabi, from charming Congress into authorizing almost $100 million to back his fledgling Iraqi National Congress in the late 1990s and convincing Washington about Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in 2002 to pressing for war last year, say both his supporters and critics." -- Washington Post, May 21, 2004

"U.S. intelligence agencies believe Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile once strongly backed by some Bush administration officials, may have passed classified information on the American occupation of Iraq to the government of Iran, officials said." -- Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2004

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Leader Pelosi Statements on Iraq >>

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The Bush Administration’s Iraq Policy -
Poor Judgment, Poor Preparation >>

Making America Safer: Closing the Security Gap >>

“ It is time for truth, the ground truth, about what is actually happening in Iraq, the ground truth about what we are doing about terrorism, and the trust that the American people must have in our country. We have a reputation that we must enjoy in the world in order to keep the American people safe, in order to promote freedom around the world. ”

- Leader Nancy Pelosi