Reply #16: U.S. Planned Poorly for Rebuilding Iraq, Inspector General Says

[struggle4progress]

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Plans for rebuilding postwar Iraq were ``insufficient in both scope and implementation,'' lacking ``systematic'' coordination between the State Department, White House and Pentagon, the special inspector general for Iraq said.

Pentagon officials starting in mid-2002, when planning began, ``were either unaware or chose to ignore'' State Department assessments, and drew up a plan on their own that wasn't finished until late January 2003, less than two months before the war began, said U.S. Inspector General Stuart Bowen.

``The lack of cooperation'' in identifying qualified personnel well before the invasion ``significantly hampered the early management of Iraq reconstruction,'' Bowen wrote in his quarterly accounting to Congress of the reconstruction effort.

Bowen's assessment marks the first time a sitting inspector general -- in this case a former White House deputy assistant to President George W. Bush -- has formally criticized the prewar planning process. Most of the authoritative criticism to date has come from retired military or diplomatic officers or academics who worked in the reconstruction effort. <snip>

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