You guys ready to talk about the fact that the occupation and invasion of Iraq were apparently planned and executed by total morons?

A friend sent me this article from the Times today:

The report on rebuilding Iraq was part of a seven-volume series by RAND on the lessons learned from the war. Asked why the report has not been published, Timothy Muchmore, a civilian Army official, said it had ventured too far from issues that directly involve the Army.

“After carefully reviewing the findings and recommendations of the thorough RAND assessment, the Army determined that the analysts had in some cases taken a broader perspective on the early planning and operational phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom than desired or chartered by the Army,” Mr. Muchmore said in a statement. “Some of the RAND findings and recommendations were determined to be outside the purview of the Army and therefore of limited value in informing Army policies, programs and priorities.”

That seemed really familiar to me. And Google News now has an archive functionality, so I found this pretty easily:

Friday, April 1, 2005; Page A03

A study of U.S. military operations in Iraq, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, sharply criticizes Pentagon attempts to plan for the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion two years ago, saying stabilization and reconstruction issues "were addressed only very generally" and "no planning was undertaken to ensure the security of the Iraqi people."

Now, there's three things here:

1. It's a seven volume series! They're two different volumes! It's an entirely different story!
2. The first time? It came out on April Fool's Day. Everybody probably thought it was a joke, with the exception of my entirely humorless self.
3. The story didn't "catch fire." It didn't get endlessly repeated on cable news networks, and just sort of fizzled out. My extract's from the Washington Post, so it's not like the MSM never published it, but it wasn't on the front page -- since I've started getting the daily paper, I realize that I really only read the front pages of various sections.

Having been ignored in 2005, the story's getting rereleased now, when a more responsible Congress is engaging in a little oversight. Waxman's starting to seem a little overtaxed, though. Does anybody want to pick up some slack?