On Monday, Al Franken talked to David Phillips, an ex state
department employee who knows a thing or two about Iraq.

In 1998 when the United
States first decided that Saddam was going
to have to be removed from power eventually, the government started preparing
for how to deal with post-war Iraq.
The State Department led this endeavor and was joined by 13 other government agencies.
The project cost the tax payers a few million dollars, but it produced a viable
plan on dealing with post war Iraq.

David Phillips was a key played in coming up with this plan,
and now has now authored a book,
Losing Iraq, which discusses the plan in even
greater detail. I personally have not read this book yet, but after listening
to Al’s show heard some very interesting points on it.

When Jay Garner was being prepped to take over Iraq,
he was never told that there was a plan out there on how to deal with Iraq
and its very diverse religion population. In a briefing someone brought up the
plan, and Jay was interested in hearing it. Instead of being presented with the
ideas that our country worked hard on, he was told by Donald Rumsfeld to not
worry about it. It seems that Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush now coin
themselves as experts on Iraq,
not the State Department or people like David Phillips who have spent their
careers studying it.

So why did we decide to not follow this plan that could of
saved countless lives. Well my opinion on the matter is simple – greed. Imagine
what would have happened if after toppling Saddam, we instantly reorganized Iraq
and handed it over. It would have been great, and numerous soldiers would still
be alive today. George Bush would most likely have a higher approval rating and
we might once again be viewed as a great nation by the rest of the world.

Instead the administration ignored the advice of the experts
and went about it their own way. Out of everyone involved in the rebuilding of Iraq,
who has prospered more? It’s sure not the families of our dead soldiers, nor is
it Americans. It is companies like Haliburton, who are making billions in
reconstructing Iraq.
Funny that the biggest winner in Iraq
is the company our Vice President ran up until taking office.

There is 8.8 billion dollars unaccounted for, and our government
does not even care. They will not investigate it. 8.8 billion dollars that
could be in social security, or repairing our nations deteriorating infrastructure.
8.8 billion dollars that we as tax payers worked and slave to give the
government so they could loose it, and they don’t even care. That is how Washington
looks at us, they do not care.

Instead we go to work everyday and make our government more
and more money to loose and mishandle. Haliburton stays in Iraq
getting richer and richer, and our soldiers stay there dying for a cause that
was filled with lies.

So to sum it up, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld
and all the others who worked so hard to get us into this war deserve a justice
brought upon them. The blood of American soldiers lie on their hands and judgment
day is coming. They must answer to their bosses, the people of the United
States, about their horrid actions to
mislead the American people. I am one citizen who will not rest until justice
has been served.