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US failed to plan for post-war Iraq-report

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 12:47 CDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An independent assessment of the tumult in Iraq led by two top former presidential advisers found the Bush administration had been unprepared for post-war Iraq and had underestimated the number of troops needed in a miscalculation that helped fuel the insurgency.

The report by a Council on Foreign Relations task force, released on Wednesday, concluded that the failure to prepare properly for the period after the war had given "early impetus for the insurgency" now gripping the country.

The task force was headed by two former national security advisers, Democrat Samuel "Sandy" Berger and Republican Brent Scowcroft, and presented a bipartisan critique of the Bush approach.

Scowcroft, national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, had warned publicly of the risks of military action in Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

"The critical miscalculation of Iraq war-planning was that the stabilization and reconstruction mission would require no more forces than the invasion itself," the panel reported.

"Pre-war inattention to post-war requirements -- or simply misjudgments about them -- left the United States ill-equipped to address public security, governance and economic demands in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, seriously undermining key U.S. foreign policy goals and giving early impetus to the insurgency," it said.

It was released as turmoil continued to ravage Iraq despite the presence of about 135,000 American troops, fueling continuing doubts about the country's future.

The report said President Bush still had not made the changes in policy and government structure needed to respond to future post-conflict situations and said this should be a top foreign policy priority.

REBUILDING FAILED STATES

It noted that during the 1990s, action to stabilize and rebuild states marked by conflict was often derided as "foreign policy as social work."

After the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, however, Bush and others redefined the problem and acknowledged that weak states, like Afghanistan, could become havens for extremists and accepted that dealing with them was equally a humanitarian and national security priority, it said.

But this acceptance "has yet to be matched by a comprehensive policy or institutional capacity within the U.S. government to engage successfully in stabilization and reconstruction missions," it said.

The administration made some welcome initial moves, like establishing a multi-agency office for post-conflict stabilization in the State Department, the report said.

Still, U.S. government responsibility for stabilization and reconstruction operations is "diffuse and authority is uncertain," the report said.

Changes were urgently needed not just because of the continued challenge of Iraq, it said.

"Failing states or those that are emerging from conflict will remain a significant feature of the international landscape for the foreseeable future, as will the corresponding demand for the United States and others to address this problem," it concluded.

The task force on Iraq and post-conflict capabilities included Republican and Democratic senators as well as former senior U.S. foreign policy officials.

Source: REUTERS

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