Hi Merv--

According to Franks' book. his Phase IV plan was minimal because, as I noted above, OSD decided to take care of "the day after." My beef with GEN Franks is not that he didn't really have a plan but that he did not insist that he was responsible for all of Phase IV. Instead, as he makes clear in his book, he was happy to have dodged that bullet and pleased that OSD had taken the responsibility. That, I think, is the essence of his message to Wolfowitz - you guys at OSD claimed the responsibility, now you have to exercise it.

If Abizaid is to blame, then I would put the onus on him for not anticipating the looting and chaos of the early part of Phase IV - the time when responsibility still belonged without doubt to CENTCOM - and not planning for the obvious (see Panama and Haiti in particular for recent examples) and not acting quickly to carry out the legal obligations of an occupier (which we were from the moment any Iraqi soil came under Coalition control.

Cheers

JohnT