Thread: Washington "Misled" Blair Over Plans for Postwar Iraq

By Greg Hurst
The Times Online UK Wednesday 13 September 2007


Britain's outgoing Ambassador to Washington has accused the Bush Administration of misleading Tony Blair over its much-criticised plans for the reconstruction of Iraq after the invasion of 2003.


Sir David Manning, who leaves his post at the end of this month, said that Britain was left in the dark as Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defence Secretary, overruled the plans for postwar Iraq drawn up by Colin Powell and the US State Department.


"There were plans made and deployed in the State Department, but in the end the State Department wasn't allowed to take the job," Sir David told the New Statesman.


"I did not know that [Rumsfeld's Defence Department] was going to take over the running of the country. We didn't have any sense that that was about to be the way postwar Iraq was going to be run."


A failure? Or was Basra mission impossible?


The root of the strain is that Britain is incrementally taking its forces out of Iraq while the US is stuck


Sir David, who at the time of the invasion was a key member of Downing Street's unofficial war cabinet as the Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser, also claimed that Mr Blair never wanted to go to war in Iraq and instead wanted a diplomatic solution.


"I don't think he ever wanted to go by the military route," Sir David said. "He accepted it might come to this, but he always wanted to do it in a different way. I've always believed he would much rather it hadn't taken place."


His comments follow claims in Washington that President Bush was taken aback by some of the decisions in running postwar Iraq, such as dismantling the Iraqi army.


Paul Bremer, who headed the coalition provisional authority which ran Iraq after the invasion, produced documents that appeared to show that he told Mr Bush that he planned to dissolve Saddam's military and intelligence structures, and was informed he had the President's full support.


I am under the forgone conclusion that a peaceful Iraq was never an intention. That would mean that we would have to leave, and that would spell big troubles for defense contractors and their share holders. The Carlyle Group would need to find another war.

No surprise here!

Wahhhhh, it's not our fault, it's his.
Britain had access to the same intelligence that Bush, (both Bushes) Clinton, & about every leader in the world, including our congress!!!

Originally Posted by Migi e!

Wahhhhh, it's not our fault, it's his.
Britain had access to the same intelligence that Bush, (both Bushes) Clinton, & about every leader in the world, including our congress!!!

Well what I am reading is they thought the state department was going to take over, and not the Pentagon.

"There were plans made and deployed in the State Department, but in the end the State Department wasn't allowed to take the job," Sir David told the New Statesman.


"I did not know that [Rumsfeld's Defence Department] was going to take over the running of the country. We didn't have any sense that that was about to be the way postwar Iraq was going to be run."

Originally Posted by Migi e!

Wahhhhh, it's not our fault, it's his.
Britain had access to the same intelligence that Bush, (both Bushes) Clinton, & about every leader in the world, including our congress!!!

Errrmm, migi, that is not what the article is about.

"There were plans made and deployed in the State Department, but in the end the State Department wasn't allowed to take the job," Sir David told the New Statesman.

"I did not know that [Rumsfeld's Defence Department] was going to take over the running of the country. We didn't have any sense that that was about to be the way postwar Iraq was going to be run."

It has to do with the plans after the invasion and overthrow of Iraq, the quagmire we are now in, the hell of the last 4 years.

No exit strategy.

.

Originally Posted by michaelr

Well what I am reading is they thought the state department was going to take over, and not the Pentagon.

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Jinx!!

:waving:

Yeah, that disbanding the Iraq military should have been the first clue to how this was gonna go. All Bushco would have had to do was to continue paying a salary to Iraqi soldiers and he would have had instant allies within both sectors. Now he claims no knowledge of that decision. Some commander in Cheap. Every decision has since been questioned and many ridiculed by top ranking Military leaders as brainless blunder after blunder.
This is the leader of the free world not RECALLING if it was he or Bremmer or Santa Claus who made that decision. He (bush) is very good at being a salesman and underrated as a politician (he grew up in a political family) But a complete moron in affairs that depend upon sound judgement.
Now he's more concerned about his place in history than getting the hell out. More sound judgements to come I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by namvet69

Now he's more concerned about his place in history than getting the hell out. More sound judgements to come I'm afraid.

And I gota tell you, THAT BOTHERS THE HELL OUT OF ME.

I blame Briatin almost entirely - much more than the US. I would have expected the British, at all levels of society, to know better.

Well... they did actually - 1.5 million marching in London, totally ignored. But I would have expected their MP'S to have at least as much common sense as the 6 billion people around the globe, including their constituants, who knew things didn't add up.

I still do. They knew exactly what was going on, they just expected it to work. Now it didn't they're crying the same 'foul' that their population was screaming them to no avail years ago.

I call 'bullshit' on British members of government who claim they were mislead.