Shaping the Plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom - The Role of Military Intelligence Assessments (Paperback, Revised ed.)

The aftermath of the war in Iraq has generated a great deal of second-guessing regarding Washington's prewar planning and intelligence efforts. Largely missing from this debate has been a thorough examination of the role of military intelligence efforts outside Washington. Gregory Hooker, senior intelligence analyst for Iraq at U.S. Central Command, provides a detailed narrative of the war planning process, beginning with the military's initial attempts to adjust to the new focus on regime change and closing with the government's ineffective preparation for the postwar environment. Alongside this narrative, he offers a sober assessment of the accuracy of specific prewar intelligence estimates. Throughout, he details the many challenges that military planners had to overcome, including inconsistent security measures aimed at keeping the war plan secret, unrealistic ideas adopted at times by policy advocates in Washington, and unnecessary time constraints on planning caused by competing assumptions between senior policymakers and CENTCOM.