"We will have to go back and take the Middle East within a decade"

Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army colonel who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, had some harsh words for the current administration and some cautionary words for anyone who would listen:

He indicated that this flawed, secretive process contributed to what he thought was a bad decision to go to war in Iraq.

But Wilkerson said that any decision by the Bush administration to leave Iraq "precipitously" would result in Iraq's neighbors sending in troops and creation of a breeding ground for terrorists like Afghanistan, leading to another major war involving the United States.

"We will have to go back and take the Middle East within a decade," if that happens, he said.

The Bush administration never planned for what would happen in Iraq after the war, he said.

"There was simply no plan with regard to postwar Iraq," other than some contingencies for humanitarian assistance, he said.

Shameful. Bush, unilaterally and pre-emptively decided to attack a sovereign nation based on a mound of lies, and he didn't even bother to plan for the post-war disaster. Does it take a genius to know that a war will leave mayhem behind? And now we're stuck. We can't even leave without risking the country to implode and the whole region to destabilize.

Nice work Mr. President. You did a heck of a job!