ANOTHER BRITISH GENERAL SPEAKS OUT

Remember, the Claremont Institute wants to give Rumsfeld an award. Thomas Ricks let us know that many American officers agreed that there was no post-war plan.

General attacks 'flawed' U.S. Iraq policy
EXCLUSIVE Tensions between allies rise to fever pitch
By Rupert Hamer Defence Correspondent 02/09/2007
Sunday Mirror

Major General Tim Cross - the most senior British officer involved in planning post-war Iraq - said he raised serious concerns with former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld BEFORE the invasion. But he says his worries were dismissed out of hand.

General Cross, 56, said: "Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan - and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process.

" I had lunch with Rumsfeld in Washington before the invasion in 2003 and raised concerns about the need to internationalise the reconstruction of Iraq and work closely with the United Nations.

"I also raised concerns over the numbers of troops available to maintain security and aid reconstruction. He didn't want to hear that message. The US had already convinced themselves that Iraq would emerge reasonably quickly as a stable democracy.

"Anybody who tried to tell them anything that challenged that idea - they simply shut it out." The general, who was deputy head of the coalition's Office Of Reconstruction And Humanitarian Assistance in 2003, added: "Myself and others were suggesting things simply would not be as easy as that.

"But he ignored my comment. He dismissed it. There is no doubt with hindsight the US post-war plan was fatally flawed - and many of us sensed that at the time."