The Bush administration and many supporters of the war eager to cast a rosy glow on the reconstruction efforts in Iraq have gone to great lengths to compare this effort to the Marshall Plan. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), in remarks to the Senate Appropriations Committee, highlighted why this comparison is faulty:

With World War II, Japan had attacked us. The Axis Powers had declared war on us. The U.S. occupation of Germany and Japan took place in the wake of a widely supported defensive war, under a commitment to internationalism and multilateralism.

We're seeing none of this in Iraq. For one, the war in Iraq was not defensive. It was a preemptive attack. Secondly, we have alienated most of the international community in fighting the war. Third, the Germans and Japanese did not resist the U.S. occupation through sabotage, assassinations, and guerilla warfare.

When the Congress considered the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Foreign Relations Committee held one-month of hearings, from January 8 to February 5, 1948, with the Chairman calling ninety witnesses to testify. After the Foreign Relations Committee reported legislation, the Senate further debated it for an additional two weeks. Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called the aid plan reported by his committee "the final product of eight months of more intensive study by more devoted minds than I have ever known to concentrate upon any one objective in all my twenty years in Congress." The Congressional Research Service states that the Marshall Plan was opened to "perhaps the most thorough examination prior to launching of any program." If only we had the patience and desire to hold more hearings and devote more study to this huge spending request for Iraq before we rush to approve it. If only this Administration would be more open to working with Congress before committing vast sums for foreign aid, as was done half a century ago.

Of course I want to optimistically believe that this administration would never have engaged us in an endeavor of this magnitude without a publicly debated and carefully considered plan of Marshall Plan caliber. The unfortunate reality, however, is that there is an obvious lack of post-war planning, marked by both a "don't ask questions, we've got it all figured out" attitude towards congress and a blatant desire to hide overall objectives from the American people. Maybe somebody forgot to mention to the Bush administration that rampant cronyism doesn't count as a plan. Marshall would have had a fit.