"(interviewer): One of the recurring themes in the latest series of leaked documents to come out of Britain is the lack of American attention to the issue of postwar planning. Did what you saw coming out of the OSP evince a similar lack of concern for the postwar phase of operations?there are some quite interesting bits in there.
KK: One of my final emails to the NESA deputy director, and the one that technically got me moved back to my original OSD Directorate for Sub Saharan Africa, related to my own observations regarding the absence of realistic post war planning.
Everyone wanted to know what they (OSP) were thinking for post-war. The Turkish government had presented our ambassador in Ankara with a long list of post war planning questions. The OSP prepared the answers, and the deputy direct shared this No-Dis Secret message with the rest of us, in hopes that it would answer our general questions.
War with Iraq had been imminent since December if not earlier, so people were wondering about what the aftermath would look like for us, even if they didn't work Iraq issues. One third of the answers to the 40 plus questions were "We're working on that" or "TBD." Another one third were pat answers that showed little competence or forethought. And the rest of the answers were patently insane or unrealistic.
For example, one of the questions from the Turks had to do with human crossflow into and from Iraq after the military victory in Baghdad. Not just refugees but others. Of course, Turkey had some concerns along these lines with Kurdish separatism problems they have. The OSP-drafted answer was that the U.S. Army would secure all of Iraq's borders. I had noted in my email to the deputy director a length comparison between the U.S. border with Mexico and the Iraq border, and suggested in a clearly disrespectful and inappropriate way that the US army was probably not going to be able to secure Iraq's border in any way, shape or form.
Yes, I admit, I had failed the groupthink test and was removed from NESA within the week. But today, it is painfully and tragically obvious that the OSP planning was not just idiotic and inadequate, it was criminal. The only question is whether this was because of incompetence or by design."
why, for example, was the OSP crafting and providing answers for the Turkish embassy? did they create them out of air? why did they lie?
the ambassador at the time was Robert Pearson - was he part of the cabal as well? he is currently "Director General, Foreign Service and Director, Human Resources." great.
why on earth would he go to Feith/Luti/Rhodes/Franklin for answers to Turkey's concerns?
you can read the rest of the interview here
(update - apparently feith was in charge of post-war planning.)
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