Really?

I thought Tommy Franks was one of the good guys?

From the BBC:

Iraq invasion plan 'delusional'

The US invasion plan for Iraq envisaged that only
5,000 US troops would remain in Iraq by December
2006, declassified Central Command documents show.

The material also shows that the US military
projected a stable, pro-US and democratic Iraq by
that time.

The August 2002 material was obtained by the
National Security Archive (NSA). Its officials
said the plans were based on delusional
assumptions.

The US currently has some 132,000 troops in the violence-torn state.

'Completely unrealistic'

The documents - in the form of PowerPoint slides
- were prepared by the now-retired Gen Tommy
Franks and other top commanders at the time.

The documents were presented at a briefing in
August 2002 - less than a year before the US
invasion of Iraq in April 2003.

The commanders predicted that after the fighting
was over there would be a two- to three-month
"stabilisation" phase, followed by an 18- to
24-month "recovery" stage.

They projected that the US forces would be almost
completely "re-deployed" out of Iraq at the end
of the "transition" phase - within 45 months of
invasion.

"Completely unrealistic assumptions about a
post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," NSA
executive director Thomas Blanton said in a
statement posted on the organisation's website.

"First, they assumed that a provisional
government would be in place by 'D-Day', then
that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and
be reliable partners, and finally that the
post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere
months'," Mr Blanton said.

"All of these were delusions," he added.

The NSA said it received the documents last
month, after making a request in 2004.

The NSA is an independent research institute at George Washington University.

It obtained the papers under the Freedom of Information Act.

Published: 2007/02/15 12:41:14 GMT

© BBC MMVII