Remember those days before the U.S. launched its ill-conceived invasion of Iraq? It’s hard not to look back now and wonder just what the fuck we were thinking. Of course those of us, such as myself, who actually questioned the stunningly rosy outlook the Bush Administration had towards the war they were planning for where branded as unAmerican and traitors for daring to think for a moment that we knew better than the President. With the passing of time it’s easy to forget some of the promises made in the run up to the war, though most folks still recall how we were told that we’d be greeted as liberators by a grateful Iraqi citizenry showering our soldiers with roses and panties. Still the full extent of the Bush Administration’s wishful thinking hasn’t really been known.

That’s why it’s interesting to read that a group has managed to acquire some of the slides from the prewar planning that shows just how far into la-la land these people really were:

Slides obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act contain a PowerPoint presentation of what planners projected to be a stable, pro-American and democratic Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

“Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans,” said National Security Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton in a statement posted on the organization’s Web site along with copies of some charts used in the PowerPoint presentation.

“First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by ‘D-Day’, then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners and, finally, that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere ‘months’. All of these were delusions.”

Yeah, delusional is pretty much the right word to use here. The most amazing thing is that the pre-war planning amounted to little more than a bunch of PowerPoint slides that contained a ridiculously optimistic outlook on the war and its aftermath.

But given the President we currently have, it’s amazing he was able to comprehend the PowerPoint slides let alone anything more in-depth.