Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has a near photographic memory of all the bad things he told President Bush might happen, but didn’t:

I presented the president a list of about 15 things that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started: the fact that the oil fields could have been set aflame like they were in Kuwait, the fact that we could have had mass refugees and dislocations and it didn’t happen, the bridges could have blown up, there could have been a Fortress Baghdad with a moat around it with oil in it and people fighting to the death So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen

Rumsfeld can’t recall, however, if he told President Bush that there might be an insurgency:

RUSSERT: Was a robust insurgency on your list that you gave the president?

RUMSFELD: I don’t remember if that was on there

That’s convenient.

Today on Meet the Press, Donald Rumsfeld said it was a big mistake to make predictions about war:

Anyone who tries to estimate the end, the time, the cost or the casualties in a war is making a big mistake.

It would have been nice if he had this attitude before the war. Prior to the invasion Rumsfeld and other top administration officials repeatedly predicted that the war would be quick and inexpensive.

Donald Rumsfeld, 3/7/03:

It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03:

I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months

New York Times, 2/2/03:

The administration’s top budget official [Mitch Daniels] estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion.

To date, the war has lasted 27 months at a cost of over 200 billion dollars.