An official familiar with the evaluation described how it subjected that scenario to the principle of what planners call \ufffdbranches and sequels\ufffd\ufffdthat is, \ufffdplan for what you expect not to happen.\ufffd The official said, \ufffdIt was a \ufffdwhat could go wrong\ufffd study. What if it turns out that Ahmad Chalabi is not so popular? What\ufffds Plan B if you discover that Chalabi and his boys don\ufffdt have it in them to accomplish the overthrow?\ufffd

The people in the policy offices didn\ufffdt seem to care. When the official asked about the analysis, he was told by a colleague that the new Pentagon leadership wanted to focus not on what could go wrong but on what would go right. He was told that the study\ufffds exploration of options amounted to planning for failure. [my emphasis] \ufffdTheir methodology was analogous to tossing a coin five times and assuming that it would always come up heads,\ufffd the official told me. \ufffdYou need to think about what would happen if it comes up tails.\ufffd