288 e lusive v ictories
The defense secretary conceded on some points, and the officers
most directly involved in commanding the operation seemed satisfi ed.
Th rough the back-and-forth between the Pentagon and CENTCOM,
the invasion plan had been refi ned, and Franks assured the president
that the military had what it needed. Rumsfeld intended to monitor
closely the fl ow of troops into Kuwait to make sure no extra unnec-
essary units would be deployed. He later insisted that senior com-
manders never voiced their reservations to him. Possibly this is so;
possibly he chose to disregard the murmurings. Either way, one thing is
clear: concerns raised lower down the military chain of command about
the sufficiency of the invasion force never rose to the level of the
president.
Regime Change... and Th en What?
Th e most serious defects in the invasion plan arose from its relationship
to the larger war goal that George W. Bush had established—to
transform Iraq into a liberal society that would be a beacon to the
oppressed masses of the Middle East. Neither the president nor his
defense secretary was comfortable with the concept of “nation building.”
Yet unless post-invasion Iraq followed a best-case scenario, the United
States would face a daunting challenge of remaking a deeply divided
nation. Rumsfeld, however, minimized the complications and insisted
that the United States would quickly hand off responsibility for the
future of Iraq. At the same time, he was a skilled and ferocious bureau-
cratic infighter who insisted on control over all aspects of postwar
planning. Preparation for postwar peace-building started late, ignored
identifi ed risks, rested on sunny assumptions, and left key questions
unresolved.
Nation building enjoyed little favor in the early days of the Bush
administration. As a presidential candidate, Bush had explicitly
dismissed the idea, asserting that it had been an error to let the U.S.
military dissipate its energies on peacekeeping missions. American
armed forces should be reserved for what they did best, engaging in and
winning violent confl icts. Nation building, if necessary, ought to be
left to other nations and their less capable militaries. Th e secretary of
defense similarly viewed the extended American commitment to