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Washington: In the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making on Iraq, one of the key architects of the war blasts former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the CIA, retired General Tommy Franks and former Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer for mishandling the run-up to invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country.
Douglas Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defence for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush's policies.
Among the disclosures made by Feith in War and Decision, scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, are Bush's declaration, at a December 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable."
The statement came weeks before UN weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain.
Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment."
Although he acknowledges "serious errors" in intelligence, policy and operational plans surrounding the invasion, Feith blames them on others outside the Pentagon and notes that "even the best planning" cannot avoid all problems in wartime.
While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains "grimly incomplete."
Degree and urgency
Powell, Feith argues, allowed himself to be publicly portrayed as a dove, but while he "downplayed" the degree and urgency of Iraq's threat he never expressed opposition to the invasion.
Bremer, meanwhile, is said to have done more harm than good in Iraq.
Feith also accuses Franks of being uninterested in postwar planning, and writes that Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser during most of Feith's time in office, failed in her primary task of coordinating policy on the war.
He describes Bush as having wrestled seriously with difficult problems but being ill-served by subordinates including Powell and Rice.
Review
Basic facts untouched
Douglas Feith, in his nearly 900-page book, does not address some of the basic facts of the war, such as the widespread scepticism inside the top of the US military about invading Iraq, with some generals arguing that doing so would distract attention from the war against global terrorists.
Nor does Feith touch on the assertion of his fellow war architect, then-Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz, that Iraq would be able to pay for its reconstruction with oil revenue.
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