Occupation of Iraq

It is, of course, possible, but you've pointed up the purely speculative nature of any such contention in that the deliberations of that group are secret, and likely to stay that way.

Actually, that's a very interesting question, Nelsonn. My guess as to the answer would be, not entirely. But you may have a point that it was under discussion at that time. Really interesting.

And tonight, on the PBS Newhour, somebody postulated that what is happening in Iraq now was all planned in advance by Hussein, once he knew the Americans were coming to invade. The looting - all of it. It's been a bit of a wonder to me that the Iraqi people hadn't taken to the streets regarding water, electricity, etc. Perhaps they were prepared for this. Which would also mean that the welcome for the liberating forces never existed. And the Iraqi insurgency is escalating. If true - isn't it ironic tha the Iraqis planned for post-war, while we apparently did not?

Tonight on PBS Bill Moyer had the head of Judicial Watch who has been suing the administration for documents, minutes etc from the secret energy task force meetings from the Spring of 2001.

The administration has already had to surrender a heavily marked up copy of a map of Iraq with it's oil areas noted and the foreign contractors noted.

One has to ask, what was the energy task force doing studying Iraq in such minute detail?

Two generals were on NPR yesterday discussing all this and they both clearly hated that the term "guerrilla warfare" was being applied (they felt it hadn't reached that level yet and were anxious that the Vietnam example not be used either), they admitted to feeling very gloomy about the potential for serious insurgency. They believe that this is a "strategic" rather than "tactical" insurgency -- more serious, because "strategic" denotes insurgency aimed at sapping the political will of the invader and ultimately winning, whereas "tactical" simply means picking off as many Americans as possible but not hoping for a definitive win.