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Defense and Secretary Rumsfeld, like many in

Defense. ORHA chief Jay Garner intended to

the administration, were adverse to state-

hand power to a sovereign Iraqi government

building and wanted the army out of Iraq in

within 90 days of the invasion, but he was

months, come hell or high water.38 In Feb-

quickly replaced by Bremer, who had a far

more ambitious agenda. With the White

ruary 2003, Rumsfeld predicted that the war

House's blessing, the CPA decided to trans-

"could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six

months."39

form Iraq into a stable democracy complete

with Western political freedoms and a market

Given the secretary's preferences, it is not

economy. The idea of a swift exit and transfer

surprising that OSD ignored its rivals when

of power disappeared.34

the president gave it control of postwar plan-

ning in January 2003. Pentagon officials, for

Once the Bush administration embarked on

instance, were told not to attend CIA war-

this course, it might have relied on any number

games, which explored the possibility of vio-

of reports, including thousands of pages of doc-

lent political conflict and chaos after Saddam's

uments on countless aspects of postwar stabi-

fall.40 Likewise, Rumsfeld, apparently following

lization and reconstruction issues that had

been prepared prior to the war.35 Most notable

orders from Vice President Cheney, forced Jay

Garner to prevent Thomas Warrick, who had

was the State Department's Future of Iraq

headed the Future of Iraq Project, from joining

Project, a large panel of Iraqi exiles, U.S. diplo-

ORHA in Kuwait.41

mats, academics, and other specialists convened

to examine the potential problems of and pros-

The CIA prepared two different estimates

pects for postwar Iraq.

pertaining to post-war conditions, one warn-

Critics of the project correctly note that it

ing about what American occupation forces

did not produce a precise reconstruction

were likely to encounter in Iraq, the other per-

plan.36 What it produced was the nearly 1,000-

taining to developments in the region. Both

of those estimates proved to be prescient, in

page long Future of Iraq Study. Although it

that they anticipated that the ethnic and sec-

was not a step-by step-guide to stabilizing Iraq,

tarian tensions in Iraq would make it difficult

the report foresaw a number of problems that

to establish a liberal democracy there that

would need to be taken up over the course of

would then serve as a model for the region.

the postwar stabilizations operations. Based

But when Paul Pillar, at the time the national

on this and other work, done both inside and

intelligence officer for the Near East and

outside of the government, the Bush adminis-

South Asia, put those estimates to the presi-

tration, according to James Dobbins, "should

dent and his senior advisers, one of the offi-

have anticipated that when the old regime col-

The Future

cials told Pillar: "You just don't see the possi-

lapsed, there would be a period of disorder, a

bilities; you are too negative."42 "It was clear,"

vacuum of power. . . . They should have antici-

of Iraq Project

pated extremist elements would seek to fill this

Pillar explained, "that the Bush administra-

was ignored

vacuum of power."37

tion would frown on or ignore analysis that

because the Bush

called into question a decision to go to war

The problem with the Future of Iraq

and welcome analysis that supported such a

Project was less that it could not be imple-

administration

decision."43

mented than that it was ignored, like all other

assigned the task

plans that foresaw a complex occupation. The

Certainly the Pentagon's occupation plan

of managing the

reason it was ignored was that the Bush

required a great deal of wishful thinking. For

administration assigned the task of managing

example, the Pentagon, and presumably the

occupation to the

the occupation to the Department of Defense,

president, believed that resistance would be

Department of

whose leaders did not want one. The State

light and that a new liberal Iraqi leader could

Department launched the Future of Iraq

be implanted without the need for a long-term

Defense, whose

Project because of a belief that a war would

military presence. Notions about Iraqi unity

leaders did not

require a prolonged effort to rebuild a func-

were equally fanciful. Indeed, the Bush admin-

want one.

tional state. The Office of the Secretary of

istration and its supporters went out of their

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