Post-invasion analyses

It's hard not to dismiss the "scathing report" of the preznit's hand-picked commission and its findings that the intelligence agencies led a poor, benighted, and naive White House to declare Iraq to be the greatest threat to our shores we as a nation have faced since 1812.

I mean it does ignore a few things, doesn't it?

I will really only note that in his "news analysis" of the report, Todd Purdom writes a really unfortunate sentence.

The clearest casualties of the Iraq intelligence failures - and the most direct targets of the commission - were the top leaders of the C.I.A., beginning with George J. Tenet, who resigned as director of central intelligence last summer in the face of rising criticism. President Bush later awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Huh? That's as muddled as Purdom's claim that all the shake-ups in the administration earlier this year -- "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" is leaving for private practice -- is a sign of White House accountability.

No the clearest casualties of the colossal, politically manipulated intelligence failures, are the thousands of dead or grievously wounded troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis. It would be useful if the writers and editors of the Times, who are not blameless in their role in selling those intelligence failures to the American people, kept that in mind.

No, the report that should be getting more attention today, via Laura Rozen, is this one.

A study of U.S. military operations in Iraq, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, sharply criticizes Pentagon attempts to plan for the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion two years ago, saying stabilization and reconstruction issues "were addressed only very generally" and "no planning was undertaken to ensure the security of the Iraqi people."

The study, done by the Rand Corp., an independent research group that was created by the U.S. government and frequently does analyses for the Pentagon, also says the experience in Iraq has underscored the Pentagon's tendency "not to absorb historical lessons" when battling insurgencies. It notes a lack of political-military coordination and of "actionable intelligence" in the counterinsurgency campaign, and urges creation in the Army of a "dedicated cadre of counterinsurgency specialists."

[...]

Planning for the invasion's aftermath rested with the Defense Department, the report recalls, rather than with the State Department or the National Security Council. "Overall, this approach worked poorly," the report says, noting that the Pentagon lacked the expertise, funding authority and contacts with civilian aid organizations for the job.

When the insurgency arose, the report says, U.S. authorities failed to understand how it differed from past "wars of national liberation" or from a "classical guerrilla-type campaign."

I guess Purdom would say that Wolfowitz's move to the World Bank is yet another sign of "accountability."