A report by the RAND Corp. in 2005, titled “Rebuiding Iraq” that was highly critical of the war planning by George Bush, then-Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and other top officials, was suppressed, according to the New York Times:

The study chided President Bush — and by implication Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served as national security adviser when the war was planned — as having failed to resolve differences among rival agencies. “Throughout the planning process, tensions between the Defense Department and the State Department were never mediated by the president or his staff,” it said.

The Defense Department led by Donald H. Rumsfeld was given the lead in overseeing the postwar period in Iraq despite its “lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution.”

The State Department led by Colin L. Powell produced a voluminous study on the future of Iraq that identified important issues but was of “uneven quality” and “did not constitute an actionable plan.”

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, whose Central Command oversaw the military operation in Iraq, had a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the military needed to do to secure postwar Iraq, the study said.

A key aspect of the report criticized Bush officials for not preparing the public for the costs of the war:

“Building public support for any pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently challenging, since by definition, action is being taken before the threat has fully manifested itself,” [the report] said. “Any serious discussion of the costs and challenges of reconstruction might undermine efforts to build that support.”

Because it was “inherently challenging,” they chose to lie about it, by peddling the idea that the war would be a “cake” walk and that U.S. forces would be greeted with flowers and candy.

RAND released the report in both classified and unclassified versions, both of which were paid for by you, dear reader. The unclassified version should be released before, not after, Bush and his cabal leave office.