Lest we get all distracted by the anniversary of 9/11 and forget we should impeach these motherfuckers post haste, here is a refresher.
“The secretary of defense continued to push on us that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” [retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps, Brig. Gen. Mark] Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”
Scheid said the planners continued to try “to write what was called Phase 4,” or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.
Even if the troops didn’t stay, “at least we have to plan for it,” Scheid said.
“I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,” Scheid said. “We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.
“He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war.”
How far did they go to lure us into war? Well, we now have part of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report. But, let’s go back to the eve of the war and look at what these malicious assholes told, or did not tell, Congress.
Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force’s Size
By Eric Schmitt
New York Times
February 28, 2003In a contentious exchange over the costs of war with Iraq, the Pentagon’s second-ranking official today disparaged a top Army general’s assessment of the number of troops needed to secure postwar Iraq. House Democrats then accused the Pentagon official, Paul D. Wolfowitz, of concealing internal administration estimates on the cost of fighting and rebuilding the country.
Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, “wildly off the mark.” Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops. Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year. He said it was impossible to predict accurately a war’s duration, its destruction and the extent of rebuilding afterward.
“We have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground,” Mr. Wolfowitz said at a hearing of the House Budget Committee. “Every time we get a briefing on the war plan, it immediately goes down six different branches to see what the scenarios look like. If we costed each and every one, the costs would range from $10 billion to $100 billion.” Mr. Wolfowitz’s refusal to be pinned down on the costs of war and peace in Iraq infuriated some committee Democrats, who noted that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the budget director, had briefed President Bush on just such estimates on Tuesday.
“I think you’re deliberately keeping us in the dark,” said Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia. “We’re not so na�ve as to think that you don’t know more than you’re revealing.” Representative Darlene Hooley, an Oregon Democrat, also voiced exasperation with Mr. Wolfowitz: “I think you can do better than that.”
Mr. Wolfowitz, with Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller, at his side, tried to mollify the Democratic lawmakers, promising to fill them in eventually on the administration’s internal cost estimates. “There will be an appropriate moment,” he said, when the Pentagon would provide Congress with cost ranges. “We’re not in a position to do that right now.”
They lied us into an occupation they intentionally avoided planning for. They lied about all of it. All of it. Impeachment is just the beginning for these folks.
