Imagine this post-war scenario.  I suspected something like this all along.   There's another Bruce Cockburn song, (forget which one) with the line.."take that Country in record time"..referring to US invasions past, and of course present. Allow me this slight variation on the title of the current operation: " O peration I raqi L iberation"

Dig this:

Several hundred U.S. government officials are already encamped in Kuwait waiting on the word to go into Iraq to set up the post-war Iraq Interim Authority under the leadership for retired Gen. Jay Garner.

A top contender to oversee Iraq's oil industry in the short-term is Phillip J. Carroll, Royal Dutch/Shell Group's former chief executive in the United States, U.S. officials said.

Carroll was chief executive of SHELL OIL, the company's U.S. subsidiary, from 1993-98. He then joined engineering and construction company Fluor Corp as chairman and CEO, retiring last year. Fluor is among the U.S. companies being considered for post-war contracts in Iraq.

Timothy Carney, a former ambassador to Sudan, is preparing to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry, while Robin Raphel, former ambassador to Tunisia, has been penciled in to run the Ministry of Trade, the officials said.

Kenton Keith, a former ambassador to Qatar, would run the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. military and its war allies envision operating the Iraqi government for at least weeks, but PROBABLY LONGER, during the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war.

Gene