forces would be retained in Iraq, and an Iraqi army dependent on US training and equipment would be created. One can take issue with some of the particulars of the plan, especially the retention of a US garrison in Iraq. But Reconstructing Eden, like a pre-war US Army War College study (Conrad C. Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario, February 2003), underscores the presence in the United States of

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... rmous expertise on both Iraq and nation-building. Why was this expertise not tapped early on and in depth by the civilians at the Pentagon who were pushing for war? Because they were charmed by the self-serving claims of ambitious Iraqi exiles in the United States? Because the liberation scenario seemingly precluded the need for any comprehensive planning for postwar Iraq? Because of a conviction that the US armed services "don't do windows"? Certainly in retrospect, designating the Defense Department to be the lead agency in postwar Iraq appears to have been a serious mistake. The State Department started earlier and spent a lot more time and energy on planning, anticipating many of the very problems the United States has encountered in postwar Iraq that have caught the Pentagon so off guard. But the State Department was ignored-yet one more piece of evidence of the growing militarization of US foreign policy. Unfortunately, neither White's plan nor any other reconstruction plan has much hope of enduring success in the absence of military security and the provision of such basic public services as electricity, potable water, and police protection. Power and drinking water are slowly being restored, but security remains dangerously problematic. In a country of easy access to vast quantities of military small arms and ammunition, the combination of exploding crime, rapidly forming sectarian militias, and growing irregular warfare directed against Americans, collaborating Iraqis, economic infrastructure, and United Nations personnel brings to mind Lebanon of the early 1980s, from which US forces were humiliatingly driven. (To be sure, US interests and force strength in Iraq are far greater than they ever were in Lebanon.) Even if security were not a problem in Iraq, however, White's plan would stand no chance of official adoption. As Secretary of the Army, White managed to get on the wrong side of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who subsequently forced White out of office. Reconstructing Eden is an informative and worthwhile addition to the burgeoning literature on America's challenges in postwar Iraq.