Exit Rumsfeld, Smiling

Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration and the author of several books. He has some excellent contacts in the government and tells us something that we probably did not know:

Few know that in early 2003 - a month or more before the Iraq invasion - President Bush was presented with two plans for post-war Iraq. The first, written by CIA Director George Tenet and Secretary of State Colin Powell, provided for a long occupation of Iraq and the nation-building that the president renounced in his 2000 campaign. The second, a Pentagon plan authored by Rumsfeld's team, provided for the establishment of a provisional government before the invasion and American withdrawal within months of Saddam's overthrow. The president, convinced by Powell that "if you break it, you own it", chose the Powell-Tenet plan and ordered Rumsfeld to carry it out.

Well! Read the whole thing!

and here's more:

What Rumsfeld's Critics Don't Get