Following Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki’s statement that it would take ‘several hundred thousand soldiers’ to keep the peace in postwar Iraq, “In a Pentagon briefing [on February 27, 2003], Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld stated ‘The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far off the mark.’ And Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz responded by making the following statement to the House Budget Committee: ‘The notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq [is] wildly off the mark.’ Wolfowitz also told Congress that the Iraqi people ‘will welcome an American-led liberation force.’ ”
– Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 157