“The U.S. Army, ordered to stand aside, watched as the national infrastructure [in Iraq] was carried away, a turn of events shrugged off by [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld with the explanation [on April 11, 2003, that] ‘Freedom’s untidy…Stuff happens.’ While the Army was watching the looters it was not watching the vast Iraqi arms depots established by Saddam Hussein–munitions dumps covering literally hundreds of square miles containing among other things unimaginable numbers of artillery shells. It was these shells, lying unguarded and free for the taking for many months, that were soon being assembled by phantom opponents into deadly roadside bombs called Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). Rumsfeld dismissed the phantom opponents as ‘Saddam loyalists’ and Sunni ‘dead enders,’ refusing to recognize the growing insurgency for a year.”
– Thomas Powers, The Military Error, Page 135