292 e lusive v ictories
military than they had from other agencies. One celebrated episode
illustrated the mind-set at the top of the Pentagon. When asked during
a February 2002 congressional hearing what might happen if unrest
followed a U.S. invasion of Iraq, General Eric Shinseki, the army chief
of staff, replied that it could require 400,000 troops to secure the
country. Shinseki, who had headed the stability operation in Bosnia,
was in a position to know. Worded as a contingent possibility, his
answer refl ected unease at the decision to depart from the doctrine of
overwhelming force that had characterized American military opera-
tions before Rumsfeld. A massive presence on the ground off ered a
comforting margin of error and would help preempt the very possi-
bility—a violent insurgency—that Shinseki had been asked to
consider.
Wolfowitz promptly struck back, insisting that American troops
would be greeted as liberators and that fears of sectarian tensions were
very much overblown. Moreover, it was absurd to think that more
troops would be needed for occupation duties than were required for
the invasion itself, and no one doubted that the force agreed upon by
Rumsfeld and Franks was sufficient to take down the Iraqi regime.
Wolfowitz confi dently predicted that other nations, even those opposed
to an American-led invasion, would pitch in with postwar stability
operations once it became clear how little risk was involved. Shinseki
became persona non grata in the Pentagon, marginalized for the
remainder of his tenure.
Although Rumsfeld and his civilian subordinates later became the
objects of widespread scorn for the Pentagon’s failure to anticipate the
insurgency that followed the invasion, the responsibility for postwar
planning remains the president’s. For a president facing what is expected
to be a long war, the task can be postponed, though often it has been
put off until too late. In the case of the planned invasion of Iraq,
however, everyone on the American side looked to a brief confl ict and
quick victory. Th us, even before the campaign started, postwar planning
had to be completed, which meant it should have been an early priority.
Bush needed to make certain that careful postwar planning happened
and to hold accountable those responsible for it. He could not plead
ignorance of the poor state of the postwar preparations: at a February
28, 2003, briefi ng Garner identifi ed several key tasks, including dealing