U.S. policy errors fuel Iraq mess

WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- A senior U.S. strategist has accused the Bush administration of "a major strategic mistake" in failing to plan for nation-building in Iraq.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and a former director of intelligence assessment at the Pentagon, said one major error was to staff the former Coalition Provisional Authority and U.S. commands with people recruited for short tours and often choosing them on the basis of political and ideological vetting rather than experience and competence.

"The problem was that the United States chose a strategy whose post-conflict goals were unrealistic and impossible to achieve and only planned for the war it wanted to fight and not for the 'peace' that was certain to follow," Cordesman said in a CSIS report published Thursday.

The U.S.-led coalition "did not try to create police forces with the capability to deal with serious insurgency and security challenges," Cordesman charged. "It ignored or did not give proper priority to the warnings from U.S. military advisory teams about the problems in organizing and training Iraqi forces and in giving them the necessary equipment and facilities."