Booting General Franks and Franking Max Boot

Phil Carter Reviews and analyzes General Tommy Franks book, American Soldier, and Max Boot's review of it in the WAPO. Neither one comes out of it very well.

....It may well be the case that CENTCOM operational plan 1003-V succeeded during Phase III of the war — that is, the major combat phase. Indeed, it can be argued that this plan succeeded spectacularly, leading to what has been called "catastrophic success". But what is abundantly clear, both to national security experts on the left and right side of the aisle, is that this same plan spectacularly failed when it came to Phase IV of the operation. CENTCOM's plan, and the plans of CENTCOM's subordinate units, failed to anticipate catastrophic success as a possibility; it failed to effectively plan for worst-case scenarios of chaos and lawlessness; it failed to put adequate security and stability and nation-building resources on the ground quickly enough; and it failed to interface with the other departments of government, namely the State Department. The result is the mess we're in today.

For those of you not familiar with Phil Carter he is a former army officer and his site is worth checking out once and awhile.