Speculation based on Palast's article

This is speculation about the Bush administration based on the article by Greg Palast referred to in the prior blog.

I am going to accept Palast as credible. (Bugs me that no one supports him OR contradicts him in the MSM.)

Accepting that, the extreme secrecy of the Bush administration from day one of Bush's Presidency makes sense. They got their first tax cut, but didn't know how to get their invasion of Iraq.

Then Osama bin Laden provided Bush with an early Xmas present. Was it a set-up? I'll buy an invitation, but I am not yet ready to buy a direct set-up. But the refusal of Bush to act on the Presidential Daily Briefing certainly indicates that they were putting out bait and hoping he would take it. So does the lack of coordination among CIA, FBI, etc., and the resistance of FBI managers to allow a search of Mousawi's hard-drive. It really looks to me like someone wanted ObL to take the bait. He did. The fact that the casualties were so horrific was, I am sure, a pleasant surprise to the Bushies. The only problem was that he was in Afghanistan, not Iraq.

Bush tried to go after Iraq right off, but was stalled by Congress-turkeys and the MSM. So he invaded Afghanistan, and at the earliest possible moment pulled the troops out of the wrong war to the one he wanted.
I am sure the fact that we went into Afghanistan with so few troops and with no American objections to speak of emboldened them to go after Iraq. I know it gave Rumsfeld the idea that his small high-powered forces could be made to work.

The secret plan by high-ranking political officers (led by Cheney and implemented by Rumsfeld? It appears that few if any long-term government employees were in on it.) would explain the refusal of the Pentagon to use the State Department plans or personnel (obviously they did not feel that Powell was on board) or CIA input or input from uniformed Pentagon officers (see reports by LtC. Kwiatoski). How could people who were not to be told of the purposes of the actions be expected to produce usable plans?

This also explains the WMD lies and the attempts to connect Saddam to 9/11. In particular, it explains Cheney's refusal to ever go off message on these lies, even after they were as tattered as a cotton flag in a hurricane.

The strange replacement of Jay Garner by Jerry Bremer after Garner had only been in Iraq for six weeks has never been explained as far as I know. Again, I have only suspicions, but I suspect that the plan Palast described was something Garner was not ready to apply. It frankly would lead to severe problems in the occupation.

Bremer came in and turned de-Baathification over to Chalabi. He also handed the Iraqi secret police files to Chalabi. Chalabi is, I think, a Shiite, and I rather suspect he and everyone around him expected the Shiites to flock to his leadership. Clearly they did not. (Mullah al Sistani? I suspect he had a key role.)

So the Bush politicos had an occupation with inadequate troops to deal with it and then the oil executives revolted (see Palast) and prevented the sell off of the oil resources.

But Bremer and the CPA did their best to install a set of free enterprise laws and structures, on the ideological (Libertarian and Republican) assumption that the only problem facing business people was the heavy hand of government. Remove government and business will create a paradise for everyone, right? These people really believe that garbage, and it has just barely enough evidence to support it to keep their belief working.

The plan to sell off the oil reserves and the CPA actions to install a libertarian type government that sold off government resources to favorites (as in Russia) and then not control what was done with them certainly would give potential insurgents a strong set of evidence that the Americans were there to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. Which, of course, they were.

Bush's refusal to ever act to correct clear mistakes caused him to let Rumsfeld continue with the inadequate number of troops in Iraq, so now the Army and Marine Corps Reserves and Army National Guard are effectively gutted. Muddling through with no increase in the armed forces was preferable to admitting how bad the mistakes were.

Then al Sistani forced Bush into supporting the Iraqi elections of January 30, something that Bush did not want. So Bush had to buy in and act like he supported the elections, and even pretend that they were the reason we invaded in the first place.

I notice that the Shiite party and the Kurds could not agree on a President to appoint a Prime Minister, so while the elected government met yesterday, nothing happened and they adjourned after two hours. The Iraqis will probably make something work, though. It is their country and no one else will. But they sure aren't going to give Bush any credit for anything that works. He hasn't helped them any.

In short, Bush et. Al. had the plans from day one in office, and the plans have utterly failed to accomplish anything positive. America has spent over $200 billion, the Italians are following the Spaniards and pulling out of Iraq, we have had over 1500 KIA (that we know of) and probably around 20,000 seriously wounded. All for a shitty little plan to steal Iraqi oil and screw over the OPEC countries. That was a plan that didn't work.

Oh, and one interesting result is that Bolton and Wolfowitz have been kicked upstairs to where they can't do any further harm to the planners. This is because neither Condi Rice nor Rumsfeld wanted to keep either of them, and Bush doesn't fire people. In the meantime, the oil company executives are pocketing their performance bonuses for greater profitability and thoroughly enjoying the situation. Oil companies 1, Neocons 0.

This speculation has some holes in it I am sure, but it is beginning to come together. Historians will love the Bush era for the next half-century at least. The rest of us will be paying for it for longer than that.