Reply #53: From the LA Times article in Star's post #29

[IkeWarnedUs]

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An ambitious, yearlong State Department planning effort predicted many of the postwar troubles and advised how to resolve them. But the man who oversaw that effort was kept out of Iraq by the Pentagon, and most of his plans were shelved. Meanwhile, Douglas J. Feith, the No. 3 official at the Pentagon, also began postwar planning, in September. But he didn't seek out an overseer to run the country until January.

<snip>

The Joint Chiefs of Staff on the second floor worked closely with the State Department planners, while Feith's Special Plans Office on the third floor went its own way, working with a team from the Central Command under Army Gen. Tommy Franks.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's civilian aides decided that they didn't need or want much help, officials in both departments say.

<snip>

The seeds for planning a postwar Iraq were sown on April 9, 2002, when Afghanistan was still on center stage and an invasion of Iraq was just talk. That was the first meeting of the Future of Iraq project, the brainchild of Thomas S. Warrick, a veteran civil servant in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

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In October, while Warrick's group worked on its blueprints and the administration pushed its diplomatic efforts at the United Nations, a new Pentagon office headed by Feith was created partly to oversee postwar planning. It operated in secret — even its name, the Special Plans Office, was intended to obscure its purpose, officials said. "The Special Plans Office was called Special Plans because, at the time, calling it Iraqi Planning Office might have undercut our diplomatic efforts," Feith told reporters last month.

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For months, the Central Command separately had sent progress reports on the war planning to the Pentagon, and for months a list of postwar issues showed up at the bottom of the memo as unresolved "open items," officials said. But Feith and his aides assured Rumsfeld that they had the planning process under control.

Bush gave Rumsfeld overall authority for the postwar plan, to maintain what he called "a unity of concept and a unity of leadership," Feith said. Despite some misgivings, State Department officials said, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell agreed.
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This is a really, really great article and I urge you all to read it. I highlighted the paragraphs above (a very small portion of the long article) because I want to point out who Douglas Feith is.

In 1996, Richard Perle and Doug Feith and 5 other researchers were asked to help the new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. They published a report called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." An October 2002 Ha'aretz Daily article talked about the report and how it is reflected in America's current foreign policies.

<snip>

The new partnership drawn up by Perle, Feith and five other researchers, has interests in all sorts of directions in the region.

"Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq," the group writes. "Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq, including such measures as: visiting Jordan as the first official state visit, even before a visit to the United States, of the new Netanyahu government; supporting King Hussein by providing him with some tangible security measures to protect his regime against Syrian subversion; encouraging - through influence in the U.S. business community - investment in Jordan to shift structurally Jordan's economy away from dependence on Iraq; and diverting Syria's attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon."

The experts advised Netanyahu to pull Turkey into the brew, with diplomatic, military, and operational support for Turkish actions against Syria. They say that "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions." One way to do it: "... Securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite."

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At this point the two Jewish experts (Perle and Feith), eventually to become key Pentagon players, are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments (including the Reagan administration, in which Perle played a key role) and Israeli interests.

link to Ha'aretz article: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=214635&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=214635

link to Perle and Feith's article, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, written in June 1996: http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm


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