In response to: “Did we, in fact — people have said, Mr. President, as you know, that the same meticulous planning that went into winning the war didn’t go into winning the peace, and we were a bit unprepared for some of the surprises — the unpleasant surprises — the terrorists and all of that that came along. Is that a fair comment?”
President George W. Bush replied: “No — (laughter) — it’s not a fair comment. We look at all contingencies and are dealing with the contingencies. Look, let me — if I could step back and maybe think out loud here about some of the stories or some of the speculation that was going on before we went into Iraq — one, the oil revenues would be blown up, the oil fields would be destroyed. They weren’t. As a matter of fact, oil production is up to 2.1 million or 2.2 million barrels a day, to the benefit of the Iraqi people. That’s a very important point. Remember, there was speculation about sectarian violence — that the long-suppressed Kurds or Shia may take out their anxieties and their frustrations on the Sunnis. That didn’t happen. There was talk about mass starvation — it didn’t happen — refugee flows that would be unmanageable — that never happened. And so a lot of the contingency that we had planned for didn’t happen. What has happened is that in a relatively small part of the country, there are Baathist –“
– Transcript, “Interview of the President by Sir David Frost of BBCTV,” George W. Bush – White House Archives online, Accessed on 7/27/2016