yeah, good ol' Paul Wolfowitz
wiki:
Kampfner outlined Wolfowitz’s strategy for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which "envisaged the use of air support and the occupation of southern Iraq with ground troops, to install a new government run by Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress." Wolfowitz believed that the operation would require minimal troop deployment, Hersh explains, because "any show of force would immediately trigger a revolt against Saddam within Iraq, and that it would quickly expand." [35] The financial expenditure would be kept low, Kampfner observes, if "under the plan American troops would seize the oil fields around Basra, in the South, and sell the oil to finance the opposition."
On March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz told the House Appropriations Committee [40] that oil revenue earned by Iraq alone would pay for Iraq's reconstruction after the Iraq war; he testified his "rough recollection" was: [40] "The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but ... We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." [41] By October of that year, " Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said 'prewar estimates that may be borne out in fact are likelier to be more lucky than smart.' [He] added that earlier estimates and statements by Mr. Wolfowitz and others 'oozed with uncertainty.'" Di Rita's comments came as a much less optimistic secret Pentagon study—which had been complete at the time of Wolfowitz's testimony—was coming to public light, and when actual production results in Iraq were coinciding with those projected in the less optimistic Pentagon study. [40]
During Wolfowitz's pre-war testimony before Congress, he dismissed General Eric K. Shinseki's estimates of the size of the post war occupation force and estimated that fewer than 100,000 troops would be necessary in the war. Two days after Shinseki testified, Wolfowitz said to the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2003:
There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army—hard to imagine. [35]
On October 26, 2003, while in Baghdad staying at the Al-Rashid Hotel Wolfowitz narrowly escaped an attack when six rockets hit the floors below his room. [42] Army Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring was killed and seventeen other soldiers were wounded. [43] Wolfowitz and his DOD staffers escaped unharmed and returned to the United States on October 28, 2003.
amazon.com
Paul D. Wolfowitz: Visionary Intellectual, Policymaker, and Strategist
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