2nd British general attacks Rumsfeld

LONDON, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- A second British general Sunday attacked U.S. planning for the Iraq invasion, calling it “fatally flawed.”

In an interview with The Sunday Mirror, Major Gen. Tim Cross -- who led British pre-invasion planning and was deputy head of the Coalition Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in 2003 -- said he endorsed comments made by Gen. Sir Mike Jackson in a his autobiography.

Cross, like Jackson, put much of the blame on former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan -- and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," said Cross.

He said that during lunch in Washington with Rumsfeld shortly before the invasion he raised the question of internationalizing the post-war reconstruction and of the need for more troops to secure the country.

“He didn't want to hear that message,” Cross said. “The (United States) had already convinced themselves that Iraq would emerge reasonably quickly as a stable democracy. Anybody who tried to tell them anything that challenged that idea -- they simply shut it out."