Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency ‘Surprised All Of Us’
Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency ‘Surprised All Of Us’
In an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday, former Deputy Secretary of Defense and current World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was challenged by a reporter about his pre-war assessment that Iraq “could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” Wolfowitz responded, “What surprised all of us is the war has gone on a lot longer than we thought in a different manner.” Watch it:
The fact that the Iraq war has raged on for years should not be a surprise to Wolfowitz, but it’s not to the intelligence community. Wolfowitz and others in the Bush administration were warned repeatedly that postwar chaos was likely. Wolfowitz chose to disregard these warnings:
A yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials. … Several officials said that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials until recently, although the Pentagon said they took the findings into account. [NYT, 10/19/03]
[T]wo classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence,…predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict. [NYT, 9/28/04]
A review by former intelligence officers has concluded that the Bush administration “apparently paid little or no attention” to prewar assessments by the Central Intelligence Agency that warned of major cultural and political obstacles to stability in postwar Iraq. [NYT, 10/13/05]
Full transcript:
HOST: Were some of the initial estimates of how Iraq would pay for its reconstruction maybe being reconsidered. I believe in 2003 you stated to a House subcommittee that there’s a lot of money to pay for the reconstruction, including from the assets of Iraqi people, oil money. And you said that the country could really finance the reconstruction and relatively soon. That was in 2003.
WOLFOWITZ: Well, “relatively soon” after the end of war. i think what surprised all of us is the war has gone on a lot longer than we thought in a different manner. Not sure of the exact numbers, but Iraq is bringing in tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue. The problem is the challenge of rebuilding the country when the war is still going on.
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What a Moron, the arrogance is insane.
And how about all that good intel before going in to Iraq.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:38 pmWolfowitz is ’surprised’ at the Iraqi insurgency, despite repeated warnings from pretty much everyone capable of rational thought.
And what does he get for his cluelessness?
The Presidency of the World Bank.
Talk about ‘failing upward’…
September 15th, 2006 at 12:38 pmAnd now I run the world bank. Thanks George.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:42 pmThey knew. This link is courtesy of Killer Whale, who posted it on an earlier thread.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB182.pdf
September 15th, 2006 at 12:42 pmWolfowitz is a certified dope, and a criminal Neocon, so anything he spews is bogus lies and propaganda!
September 15th, 2006 at 12:43 pmI don’t care if it suprised him or not. The way the administration has executed this is a tragedy. A lot of speculation recently has been made on what the Clinton Administration should have done regarding Al Qiada and 9/11. Let’s kick it up on what should have been done before entering Iraq, what went wrong since then and what we expect to see from now on.
He is one of the chief architects from PNAC and regardless of the ideological goals the execution has been piss poor and is a failure. They had the fear machine at full tilt with the worst case scenario before the war and put next to nothing in planning the aftermath using the best case scenario.
Wrong and Wrong Wolfowitz. I don’t care if you are suprised you are still accountable.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:45 pmHow does the old saying go? “None so blind as those who will not see.”
If they didn’t see the insurgency coming it’s because they didn’t want to see it coming. These people refused to accept anything that said that what they thought would happen was wrong. How much longer before the number of troops killed in Iraq exceeds the number of people killed on 9/11? Everyone in the Bush Administration who was also a member of PNAC (or a signatory to one of its many letters and statements) should be treated the same way they want to treat suspected terrorist detainees. Or would that constitute inhumane treatment?
September 15th, 2006 at 12:45 pmBullshit, there was no surprise.
I’m really tired of PNAC lies.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:46 pmIs it any wonder that a majority of the intellectual capital from the CIA resigned? Democracy is not immediate. Diplomacy isn’t unilateral. To make immediate unilateral decisions is to dictate.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:50 pmYou expected the people coming out from their houses to cheer US forces as saviors? Yeah. As long as that insurgency dont thread the oil fields of Iraq, things are going as expected.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:51 pmThis is the bushco version of “Monday Morning Quarterbacking:”
“I tell you, it is still Saturday, Damn it. Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.”
September 15th, 2006 at 12:52 pmBullshit, there was no surprise.
I’m really tired of PNAC lies.
Comment by AnAmerican — September 15, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
sounds like the beginnings of a great song…
September 15th, 2006 at 12:53 pm…
Where’s the MSM calling him out on this lie. Come on Neo’s, give me another example of that liberal media you believe to exist.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:56 pmWolfowitz combs his hair with spittle, so the guy is a complete weirdo > shame on the World Bank for hiring that creepo Neocon criminal!
September 15th, 2006 at 1:00 pmIf you didn’t foresee that the armed occupation of a foreign country would result in a resistance forming, then you just aren’t very bright. I mean come on dude.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:01 pmThis is a War-Monger. Everyone, and especially this current generation, should listen to Bob Dylan’s masterpiece “Masters of War”. For a quick review of these timely words see: http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/masters.html
Someone should put together a montage of Wolfy, Rummy, and Shooter (the VP), so that we can all see the faces of the Masters of War while listening to the tune.
We’ve been here before and it was called Vietnam. We killed a lot of human beings for no reaseon other than hubris. We’re doing it today, and unfortunately we’ll probably do it again in the future.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:03 pm“Relatively soon… AFTER the war is over.” Oh, NOW you tell us. Great… And who does he think he;s fooling? There is no way, whatsoever, that the Iraqi’s are getting ‘tens of billions’ of dollars for their oil, not if the output is LESS than it was before we invaded. And there is the issue of BushCo controlling the oil in Iraq, they have made deals with ‘Big Oil’, so they all have a chunk of it. Just another pile of lies. It just keeps on coming.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:04 pmNot me.
Maybe I should have a high ranking job in Washington, so our troops aren’t put in this type of danger because our current leaders are morons.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:09 pmSame tired old topics from both the Rightwing and the FakeLeft/cryptoRight:
-Iraq-religion-political gossip-bush-global warming-blah-blah-blah…
and so on and so forth.
How about trying some TRUE Leftist topics like progressive taxation and universal healthcare.
You FakeLefties let the ruling class dominate the political agenda by falling all over whatever topics THEY deem to be worthy of the political debate.\
You FakeLefties SUCK and you are really the best friend of the plutocrat and the megacorporations.
How come EVERY TIME I load a webpage from a supposedly LEFTIST website associated with the Democrats, all I get is the same old topics devoted to whatever it is that the upper class finds worthwhile?
Why is that populist economics issues like progressive taxation and universal healthcare and european-style mandated vacation time and immigration control HARDLY EVER SHOW UP on fake-left/democratic/liberal websites?
I will tell you why–cuz you lot are the same as the rightwingers over on freerepublic, etc. You fake lefties just have a slightly different tack on the same old ruling class topics. You are the ruling class’s puppets.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:26 pmShould we start putting in positions of authority people who are not so obviously challenged by apparent realities?
September 15th, 2006 at 1:30 pmWho is this “all”?
The career professionals overwhelmingly expected an insurgency. Only the fools with an agenda like Wolfowitz got surprised.
Just as the Hart-Rudman Commission report stated, airport security was too lax and there was the need to create a department of Homeland Security. We paid a price for not listening to what the career professionals were saying.
The most severe price paid was in ignoring what the career professionals were saying in the August 6, 2001 PDB stating “bin Laden determined to strike inside US” with one of the possibilities singled out, aircraft hijackings.
Most of the time, three strikes and you are out.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:32 pm#19 Cryofan-
I began reading your Homo Sapien Americanus and find it interesting. I will continue it later (heading to Friday lunch and cocktails!)
Among your two main topics that we should be concerned about, I want to know if you think that an investigation into the real events that occurred to cause 9/11 is priority. I do. Because I believe it was an inside job. Is that crazy FauxLeft to you?
I don’t appreciate your attitude, by the way. I think I speak for most of the people on this thread when I say that. Please be civil.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:41 pmOh yeah, they knew, and chose to cherry pick only the intel that remotely bolstered their bullsh*t.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:41 pmAnd we pay the price, and pay , and pay.
The bastards!
Cryofan, you are an insignificant pile of puss. This website is the latest news showing the continual downward spiral of the lies this administration has told the American people. Disagree with it fine, but stick to the thread you fear pushing pimp.
Tired ol’ topics, the wolf just said it. Open your ears, shut your mouth and accept there is a whole wide world outside the fear factory you’ve been hiding in.
Right, the lefty’s are the best friends to Haliburton, Exelon and the like.
You and your ilk are just farts in the wind so just blow away.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:43 pmHow about trying some TRUE Leftist topics like progressive taxation and universal healthcare.
cryofan
How bout you spend some of your hard earned dough setting up your own website and go for it!
September 15th, 2006 at 1:43 pmI can’t wait to see what this basta*d looks like in chains…
… and rope…
…Keep the Patriot Act in force…
…’til the Bushites are brought to justice…
September 15th, 2006 at 2:13 pm…..duh…..so he was WRONG and 100,000 have died….he doesn’t care as in ‘I’ve got mine,screw you’….I wonder if he hears the voices in the night of the dead screaming for justice.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:23 pmWho could have predicted that those rose petals were IEDs?
September 15th, 2006 at 2:23 pmif the average american citizen knew it was going to be a looooong war, right didn’t the (p)resident also say it was going to be long. for an administration to know everything they sure in the hell don’t know shit. so let’s start a war when ‘we don’t know’ when, where, why, and how. sounds competent. wtf. nice try folks.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:32 pmThe cabal of lies just goes on and on and on ………..
September 15th, 2006 at 2:40 pmMeasure these bastards for orange jumpsuits.
cryofan
You do realise this is a site dedicated to commenting on the news, and current events, rather then a site dedicated to arguing about ideology? I mean, if you want my leftwing view here we go:
Economics:
Currently Reaganomics are basically stupid. They always have been. They failed under Reagan, and he was forced to change his economic policy in his second term, and they have failed under Bush for much the same reasons.
A strong economy is not characterised by how much money it has, but rather how much money is cycling through the system at any time. For this reason it makes a certain amount of sense to charge the rich, who are proportionally more sluggish in their spending, more then the poor, who need to spend that same money just to stay alive. There are only so many rooms a man can sleep in, so many cars a man can drive.
Aside from that, America’s debt position under Bush is reaching unprecedented danger levels. What happens when the world stops lending America’s government money, will be catastrophic, because lets face it the Americans of today are not the Americans of the 1930’s and they are no where near as likely to take hardship well. It is time for America to bite the bullet, raise taxes, and start thinking ahead.
Military:
When you are at war, by all means spend a lot of money to upgrade the military, but don’t spend it on $2 million missiles, that is a waste of money. War needs to be waged economically, and after a certain point a bullet is a bullet.
When you are not at war the military should be shrunk down to being as small as is reasonably practical. You guys in America have whole big oceans between you and most of your natural rivals, and frankly Canada and Mexico are not looking like invading any time soon.
The military should be able to provide its own catering, and putting the security of any reconstruction efforts in the hands of private contractors is an insult to your service men. There are some things that should not be contracted out.
After a soldier has served in war America should be frigging grateful. This is someone who has literally put his life on the line for you and the least you could do is give him an education and free Medicare for any wounds he suffered during action.
The CIA:
The CIA I am treating as separate to your military. An emphasis on human intelligence needs to be paramount, with a well-disciplined highly skilled group of operatives, analysts, and administrators being the key to making the CIA work. There needs to be strict and severe guidelines as to what the CIA can and cannot do. Torture I feel should be on the “cannot do” list.
At the same time the CIA needs to be treat with far more respect then it has been. CIA agents are well-educated people who are willing to risk their lives on their jobs, when they come back with a report that says something other then what you want to hear, that report should be taken seriously and not just ignored. While the CIA should not be given a free reign, nor should they be kept from doing their jobs.
Human Rights and the Rule of Law:
Rights are paramount, and the government should not interfere with them at all. This goes for freedom of religion and this goes for the right privacy. This even goes for the right to bear arms, even though I personally, disagree with it. The rule of law should cover everybody. Those holding public office should have their sentences doubled and their rank stripped from them, if they are caught abusing the public trust. The president, in a similar situation should be sentenced as though he committed high treason.
Illegal immigrants, as illegal, should be deported and those who hired them should be charged and sentenced accordingly. It should not be a racial issue; it should be a legal issue and nothing more. While I as a Internationalist believe labour should be as free to move as capital is, the law is the law.
The Environment:
I believe that in this day and age to stand against research into alternative energy sources is the height of stupidity. Global Warming is a definite trend we have noted all around the world, and it is a serious issue. So is the rest of the environmental damage associated with air pollution.
Further, as we are currently faced with a fairly serious problem in the Middle East in that the countries in the Middle East have about 40% of the world’s oil, and they don’t like the West, it is only common sense for us to take away the advantage that is oil.
Public Education, University Funding, etc…:
Education is an investment in the future; a well-educated workforce is generally more efficient and leads to a better product. Further it is better to develop local doctors then it is to import them.
Public Health.
It is shameful that in a first world country the leading cause of bankruptcy amongst its population is medical bills. There should be a public healthcare option, with no bar against having private hospitals at the same time. I do not believe that the poor have less of a right to live then the rich.
Policing:
The police force should be fully integrated and well funded. There should be a emphasis placed on current issues but for the most part America’s police force is not bad.
Media:
The News should tell you the truth. When reporters get fired for reporting the truth that News Vendor should be shut down and its owners thrown in jail. I do not believe freedom of speech covers the freedom to lie and call it the news. Basic journalistic ethics need to be brought into the news, and the fairness doctrine needs to return.
Further, as a personal view, the news needs to focus less on sensationalism and more on what currently matters. The latest “White Girl Goes Missing” story does not exactly fill me with a great deal of respect for the American media.
Normal entertainment is fine. I do not believe violence of TV makes violence on the streets. That said, I feel that what is being portrayed as admirable in America’s entertainment culture, is machismo with the absence of the feminine and the Masculine. While I don’t care about the nudity or massacres, I feel more needs to be portrayed then just sex, murder and mediocrity.
I could take this further, but this is about as much as I feel like typing in one shot.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:41 pmFor the record, I believe W appointed “the wolf in sheeps clothing” to the world bank.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:51 pmIn the first Gulf War, Bush (senior) was smart enough to heed to advice of military planners. As mush as he wanted to see Saddam Hussein toppled, he realized that Saddam kept Iran in check. Bush senior also realized that Saddam’s brutality is what kept the disparate parts of Iraq (Sunni, Shia, and Kurds) together as a nation. Bush senior realized there was no graceful exit strategy if Saddan was removed from power. Bush junior on the other hand was arrogant, drunk on military power. We are now paying BIG TIME for the bad judgement and poor deicions of Bush junior. Too bad Bush junior did not heed the advice of his father and chose to “listen to a ‘higher’ father”.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:58 pmGood presentation Bruce and great observation theswan
September 15th, 2006 at 3:01 pmSurprised were they? Maybe they should have read my email. I sent dozens. And so did many of my friends. We got no reply. We marched, we were ignored by the administration and the mainstream press.
September 15th, 2006 at 3:27 pm#31 Excellent post, Bruce. I like the way you think. You give me hope for mankind.
September 15th, 2006 at 3:35 pmSoon… you’ll see a whole lot of these criminals trying to sound reasonable as they vie for position in the Titanic Lifeboat Lines.
September 15th, 2006 at 4:41 pmNonsense. Lying Straussian neocons lies once again.
Cheney quote from 1991:
“The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad, and uh, somehow take control of the country strikes me as, as, and extremely, uh, serious one, in terms of what we’d have to do when we got there. You’d probably have to put some new government in place. It’s not clear what kind of government that would be –how long you’d have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily, in determining the outcome of, uh, the struggle over whose going to govern in Iraq, strikes me as the classic definition of a QUAGMIRE.”
Rather than fighting against terrorism it’s used as a tactic to spread the PNAC wars.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:11 pmhttp://movies.crooksandliars.com/cheney-quagmire-Iraq.mov
September 15th, 2006 at 5:13 pmYeah, Wolf, and we are surprised that you are still breathing air.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:15 pm#31 Bruce Gorton
September 15th, 2006 at 5:20 pmExcellent post!!
I am applauding with my keyboard ^^^^^
Don’t you live in Great Britain? You certainly have a good grasp of American politics.
Is he still opening his pie hole? Sweet Jee-sus!
September 15th, 2006 at 5:22 pmBruce
September 15th, 2006 at 5:22 pmI second all of that great post.
Gee. imagine a country resisting imperial colonial aggression in the 21st century… who’d a thunk it? Gee, Mr. Wolf, why don’t you try reading a few history books and you will discover that the British imposed their colonial rule on Iraq and the Kurds after WW I, murdering thousands of them in the process. Also the Brits were the first to use WMDs in Iraq when they dropped poison gas bombs from airplanes onto Kurdish villages in northern Iraq in this same campaign of colonial aggression…
Of course, we resisted British imperial colonial aggression by the mad King George III back in 1776, but now under the Bush traitors, America has become the aggressor-nation…
:I’m the douche-bag of Crawford and you can be my douchess…”
with apologies to the late, great Frank Zappa, who once sang, “Watch the Nazis run your town”… T
The war criminals aren’t too bright, they don’t sparkle all night, deep in the heart of Tex-ass…
September 15th, 2006 at 5:56 pmCheers.
WTF would this cowardly chickenhawk know about war. He hid behind draft deferments when he had a chance to fight in one himself.
September 15th, 2006 at 6:57 pm“Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency ‘Surprised All Of Us’ ”
How surprised were Wolfie and his PNAC and WHIG pals at the megabucks that war profiteering contributed to their personal coffers?
September 15th, 2006 at 8:47 pmPerhaps the neocons want Arabs torn apart by sectarianism so they can organise any resistance to the economic imperialism imposed on them by the cristian theocracy of the USA
September 15th, 2006 at 9:04 pm#31, Bruce, you are a mensch!
September 15th, 2006 at 9:35 pmThat’s a compliment, in case you don’t get the Yiddish.
Succinct, clear, rational normal thinking… nice for a refreshing change from the trolls!
He’s full of shit. On NPR, every middle east expert that came on predicted a hornets nest being blown wide open, if the U.S. went into Iraq. The Bushies were ensconsed in their litte cocoon, and didn’t give a damn about what anyone had to say.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:39 pmBruce, spot on. I find it amazing how many people miss the one essential fact in macro-economics…the multiplication of the dollar. I guarantee that little George Washington is not multiplying a whole lot. It is the most basic concept in economics but the righties…just…don’t…get…it.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:18 pm[...] Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency Surprised All Of Us Think Progress, DC – 9 hours ago Deputy Secretary of Defense and current World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was challenged by a reporter about his pre-war assessment that Iraq could really [...]
September 15th, 2006 at 10:45 pmWolfy, it is freaking shocking that a country wouldn’t want to be occupied by a foreign force. This is what passes for thought in Washington?
September 15th, 2006 at 11:08 pm#55 At least LBJ had a crisis of conscience. These guys don’t have that “weakness”.
September 15th, 2006 at 11:20 pmMarie
I am a South African in South Africa. We were taken by the same sort of rhetoric not that long ago when we were under Apartheid, I just don’t want to see someone else getting away with that kind of thing.
September 16th, 2006 at 6:08 amNote: I am talking about the Neocon rhetoric here.
September 16th, 2006 at 6:08 am[...] It seems awfully hard to question the decision to keep the reasonable policy hands with relevant experience in reserve in case, say, mideast terrorists attacked the unemployment office. Better to send in the College Republicans. After all, nobody could have anticipated that parachuting inexperienced partisan hacks into an unfamiliar country might not work. Well, maybe the Future of Iraq Working Group did. But listening to State is a perfect example of pre-9/11 thinking. [...]
September 17th, 2006 at 11:44 am[...] Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency Surprised All Of Us Think Progress, DC – Sep 15, 2006 Deputy Secretary of Defense and current World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was challenged by a reporter about his pre-war assessment that Iraq could really [...]
September 19th, 2006 at 10:44 am[...] Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency Surprised All Of Us Think Progress, DC – Sep 15, 2006 Deputy Secretary of Defense and current World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was challenged by a reporter about his pre-war assessment that Iraq could really [...]
September 25th, 2006 at 6:44 am[...] Wolfowitz: Iraq Insurgency Surprised All Of Us Think Progress, DC – Sep 15, 2006 Deputy Secretary of Defense and current World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was challenged by a reporter about his pre-war assessment that Iraq could really [...]
September 25th, 2006 at 6:44 am