M a r k D i l l e y

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INTEL DUMP - -

"As Mr. Diamond sees it, 'blame for the early blunders' in Iraq 'lies with the high officials of the Bush administration - including the president himself - who decided to go to war when we did, in the way we did, with the lack of preparation that has become brutally apparent.' He reminds us that 'the startling mismanagement of planning for the postwar did not result from a sudden emergency and a lack of time to plan': civilians at the Pentagon had begun pushing the case for war against Iraq almost immediately after 9/11, and a wide-ranging report known at the Future of Iraq Project had been started at the State Department in the spring of 2002. This report, says Mr. Diamond, was initially ignored by the Pentagon, which in its early certitude about 'the inevitability and speed of America's triumph,' swept 'aside experts in the State Department and elsewhere who had described what the postwar realities in Iraq would require.' "