View Of Experts: Bush has no plan, has had no clue, Civil War likely

Josh Marshall has the following from The Nelson Report (a subscription political journal) ...

Gloom...has been building over Iraq. Increasingly, the Wise Heads are forecasting disaster. Wise Heads say they see no realistic plan, hear no serious concept to get ahead of the situation. Money, training, jobs...all lagging, all reinforce downward spiral highlighted by sickening violence. There seems to be no real "if", just when, and how badly it will hurt U.S. interests. Define "disaster"? Consensus prediction: if Bush insists on June 30/July 1 turnover, a rapid descent into civil war.

May happen anyway, if the young al-Sadr faction really breaks off from its parents. CSIS Anthony Cordesman's latest blast at Administration ineptitude says in public what Senior Observers say in private...the situation may still be salvaged, but then you have to factor in Sharon's increasing desperation, and the regional impact.

1. Comes word from Very Senior Foreign Policy Observers that the situation now unfolding in Iraq is "a qualitative change of very profound significance. The chances of something like a general breakdown after the July 1 transfer is accelerating." The Observation continues: "Even if [dissident cleric Muqtada] al-Sadr is arrested, the whole question is whether the Shi'ia majority is comfortable with continued U.S. occupation." The suggested answer seems to be "no".

-- the Observer goes on to warn that, on the basis of personal soundings within the Administration, the conviction arises that the White House has "no concept of how to manage the crisis, no plan in place likely to work."

Easrlier he had the original statement pre-invasion to back up his statement: If you put yourself back in that mindset the Bush politicals had as of early 2003, the idea was that the great mass of the Iraqi population would be in sync with what we were doing and eager to participate. Our role was being there at the ready to help them deal with crises brought on by the war or by the internal degeneration of the country in the years before it: ready to ship in water, food, help repave the roads, technical assistance getting their economy in order and reformed, etc. That's what we'd be there for. And thus we could pull most combat troops out after a few months.

The idea that we'd need a vast army of occupation -- hopefully one with some multinational flavor -- to make everyone keep their heads down while we went about with the serious and risky business of nation-building simply didn't occur to them. Thus the treatment of Shinseki.

This crew simply didn't understand what they were getting into. It was an intelligence failure even more difficult to grasp than the fiasco over WMD -- and in this case it stemmed entirely from administration political appointees in the face of unanimous contrary advice from everywhere else in government.

They've never copped to that misunderstanding, even to themselves. That team can't save the situation.