http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=8&theme=&usrsess=1&id=50256Frank(s) disclosures: Bush knew of flawed plans before war
The Times, London
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2. — General Tommy Franks, the US commander during the Iraq war, warned President Bush before the invasion that a quick military victory could rapidly turn to disaster because of inadequate post-war plans, according to his memoirs.
Gen. Franks — who also commanded the US military in Afghanistan — retired last summer. He says that the US committed a critical mistake in disbanding the Iraqi Army after the fall of Baghdad.
In American Soldier, to be published tomorrow, Gen. Franks says he warned Mr Bush and Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, that a new Iraqi army would have to be created to prevent the “catastrophic success” to which quick military victory could lead. Despite their pre-war agreement, Gen. Franks said he had not got the “open chequebook” he needed to put Iraqi soldiers on the new Iraqi government’s payroll.
“I would continue to argue that there could be no security without civic action,” Gen. Franks writes. “Penny-wise will surely be pound-foolish, I thought. We spend dollars today ... or blood tomorrow.”
In a pre-publication interview with Time magazine yesterday, Gen. Franks was asked if the US should have called the Iraqi army back to duty, rather than disband it. “We would have been wise to do that, and in my view we should have done that,” he said.
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