Duration of planning
The primary lesson here is also the simplest : start planning long before it seems necessary to do so . General Garner cites the Marshall Plan 12 , the design of which began immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack , more than three years before the end of the war . Although there was of course no way of knowing how long or brief the war would be at that point , the rationale was quite sound — precisely because we had no way of knowing , planning should begin as soon as possible . This was not done in Iraq — planning there was ad hoc and on the fly , on the apparent assumption 13 that the overall effort would be brief and painless enough that there would be no real need . ORHA saw planning as a long process ; the CPA saw it as unnecessary .
Planning depends on analysis , not the other way around
The CPA appears to have seen long-term planning as unnecessary because the administration was aiming towards a result they considered a foregone conclusion . The administration ignored or dismissed the analysis of sub-national schisms and frictions that predicted social breakdown , and proceeded on the assumption that the only challenge would be replacing one set of government institutions with another . Viewing the situation thus as an entirely technical exercise , success could be achieved simply by committing more resources until that desired conclusion came about . That foregone conclusion is detailed in statements by administration officials that appear dismissive of the need for forward-looking analysis and
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