James Dobbins Biography

"I assumed that the administration and the U.S. military would have incorporated lessons from the '90s and taken the kind of preparatory steps that would have at least ameliorated many of the difficulties that eventually arose. I assumed, for instance, that there would be substantial numbers of military police and the forces that were available to move into the major cities immediately after the collapse of the regime. I assumed that they would anticipate that the regime's security apparatus would disintegrate... [and] that maintaining security would fall heavily on U.S. and coalition forces. I assumed that they would have prepared commanders to assume that responsibility, to take that responsibility early on.

These assumptions were incorrect. We didn't pre-position significant numbers of military police; we hadn't prepared commanders to assume responsibility for public security rapidly; and we didn't anticipate that the regime's security apparatus would disintegrate and become largely useless. I think we should have, because this is, broadly speaking, what had happened in each of the previous episodes over the last decade. But I think that the administration had chosen to look to a different set of models and a different set of experiences for inspiration, and I think that that misled them as to the difficulties they were likely to encounter."