Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

After Crawford, Rumsfeld ask Franks a host of questions that overwhelm his staff. Rumsfeld's "iterative planning" is never complete, and Franks core of 15 senior advisors ringed by a group of brainy middle to upper-rank officers adapt to the secretary's style. "Targetters" are tasked with giving answers on what to hit, while the others are ordered to determine how to leverage assets to proceed with half the planned force in half the planned time. No one yet knows the impact of information gathering and propaganda. Franks segregates the various lines of operation so only he and a few others understand the overall state of the plan.

Powell is troubled by what he hears. He remembers how generals in Vietnam would tell the politicians what they wanted to hear. He recalls Robert E. Lee's saying of, "It is well that war is so...