Was reading this interview with Rumsfeld and others, and Rumsfeld pointed out something.

I have heard the administration, the military, and others getting a lot of grief for not anticipating every result of the war, and for not having something immediately ready to meet it. What I had forgotten is that there were a lot of things we WERE ready for that never happened.

Q: Thanks…You all have now had almost six months of this experience. I'm wondering if you could go back six months and change some things that you did, what are those areas? What would you have liked to have known before you came in? What would you have liked to have brought with you?

Rumsfeld: You know when I think back six months, we spent a great deal of time thinking through and planning for a host of things that, terrible things that could have happened that did not happen, and preparing to help cope with them.

There always is a risk in a war of a humanitarian disaster. In the case of this conflict there was not one.

Ten years ago, 12 years ago, there was a serious problem with internally displaced persons and refugees. We were preparing for that. That did not occur in large numbers.

The risks that the dams could have been broken and areas flooded was a concern, and we had preparations to try to deal with that.

The experience in the Gulf War 12 years ago, 11 years ago, of oil wells burning, being set afire by Saddam Hussein and his troops was something that concerned us greatly. And as everyone here knows, the environmental disaster in that instance was just terrible. In this conflict the number of wells was I believe, if I recollect correctly, something that would fit in two hands that were actually destroyed or burned or damaged with bulldozers.

What one does is plan for the things that could be serious, serious problems and then as you go forward you have to deal with the world as you find it.

One of the things that took place in this country that is I think contributing to the circumstance we're in today, the security circumstance we're in today, is that the war really was never finished in terms of the series of battles. Most of the battles that took place were south. As Baghdad was approached the Iraqi forces between north of Baghdad fought for a period, but at some point melded into the countryside and as a result there are still Ba'athist elements that are there that are causing and contributing to the security problem.

I must say we did not anticipate that Saddam Hussein in October, I believe it was, and his forces would open up the prisons and let out some large number in excess of 100,000 criminals and people to be turned loose on the Iraqi people. We're now having to deal with those people.

I'm trying to think what else. What would you add? What would you change?

I remember the on-site news interviews in Jordan, near the Iraqi border, where vast tent cities had been set up for refugees. They still stood empty behind the reporters at the height of the war. The reporters, prepared for floods of people down the roads from Baghdad, pounced on every car or bus that rarely showed up. I always wondered at that at the time, and thought that maybe the Iraqi people trusted us more than we thought.

I'm always impressed by how Rumsfeld behaves in press conferences, considering most of the reporters there have, as their dearest wish, that Rumsfeld would explode into a smoking cloud of vapor.

The rest of the transcript is well worth reading as well, particularly Sanchez's remarks.