And it's yet another outgoing military commander saying that there was no plan for the post-war occupation of Iraq:
Unfortunately, Hagee's comments only deepen the mystery. He says he was deeply concerned about who would take charge of major Iraqi cities, like Najaf, as the Marines pushed through them on their way to Baghdad.
Hagee says he asked his boss again and again who would take charge of those cities. He wanted to know what the plan was for Phase IV -- military terminology for the phase that follows the end of major combat operations. Phase IV is, in other words, what comes after "mission accomplished." Hagee says that he sent his questions up the chain of command, as they say in the military -- and never heard back.
How many times do we have to hear this from one general after another before it becomes true?
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As you well know from your experience with creationists, Ed, no amount of repetition can turn a lie into truth.
Hence, if the claim is really true, the number of repetitions required is one. If it isn't, aleph-null won't suffice.
Since in this case the claim is false, I'd say your answer is aleph-null.
wolfwalker counts on people taking his word for this or the word of the impartial folk over at the Captain's Quarter. Basic strategy of take my word for it -- because it's worked so well for the illiterate republican base so far.
I encourage anyone that has 7:30 minutes to watch the video directly from the CBS site. It appears quite clearly that Hagee is making excuses and backpedaling throughout the interview; putting the best face on it with plenty of "I was wrong" peppered throughout. (The customary I was Wrong tour prior to the revelatory book that is the staple of so many failures).
Actually the video itself is more damning because Hagee counts that some premature imbecility has fallen upon us and that we don't remember that Bremmer was brought to counteract Garner's plan after the situation went way further south of the rose-petal liberation scenario spewed by Cheney. To call Bremmer's belated presence a plan, is to call the 22-year old administration political hacks on Bremmer's staff, highly qualified state department personnel.
Garner's plan was roundly considered too lenient on the Baathists and thusly had to be scrapped. Our pal Chalabi would have none of it if the baathists remained in power. It would have stood in his ability to lead the newly liberated Iraq.
However, even Garner's minimal plan was a poorly thought out basket of wishful thinking. This whole strategy of bringing in retired generals to oversee the political and social restructuring goes back to Nash's abortive attempts in Bosnia and Kosovo.
You know, the democracy is messy school of planning that the Pentagon engages in. Unfortunately, this only works if the locals are shocked and awed. Turn out the Iraqis weren't sufficiently awed by our triumphalist declarations.
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By the way, does anyone else think that the Day by Day strip featured on the conservative sites is some of the most obtuse crap out there? I like the drawing style of the bosomy republican vixens, but really, they're going to need to show way more republican skank flesh to make that faux-intellectualism interesting. I don't know where these republican vixens that fit into a revealing halter and tight jeans are hiding in real life.
"Day by Day": The dark-haired girl is a liberal, so there's only one scantily-clad republican vixen. I've never met anyone like that in real life, either. But in a nation of 300 million people, I guess there's got to be one somewhere.
I wouldn't call the strip the "most obtuse crap". It's actually pretty clever when you compare it to Mallard Fillmore. (Today we've got a "Rocky Horror Picture Show"-based pun. Granted it's a lame pun and the rewritten lyrics don't scan, but I think he gets points for having seen RHPS. It's a shame that it's going to fly right over the heads of his target audience.)
Sorry to go on and on. I'm very serious about comic strips.
I'm startled by the claim that we didn't have a plan for post-war occupation. I've been assuming that we did have a plan, and that it was a really stupid plan that didn't work. This new revelation would have made me even more outraged, if that were still possible.