Seattle residents seem to have two mutually exclusive views as to "what went wrong" during the World Trade Organization's ministerial talks last fall: those who are concerned that we lost control of the streets, and people concerned that we lost control of the cops. So far, the city seems more concerned about the streets.

Last week's release of the Seattle Police Department After Action Report on the WTO, the first major study of what happened in that fateful week, was as notable for what it excluded as what it said. While the report was sharply self-critical of planning leading up to the week, it made no mention, even as an exceptional occurrence, of possible civil rights violations, or of hundreds of innocent protesters and bystanders arrested on December 1 with the same police report. Indeed, the report singled out officer performance-- of all agencies, not just SPD--as one of the week's few strengths: "The discipline and restraint showed by officers...demonstrated the high quality, strength, and training of our regional law enforcement officers."

Also notably missing was any admission that planners simply didn't listen. While the report angled for repeal of the city's ordinance prohibiting surveillance of political groups, citing it as an impediment to information- gathering on the protests, there was no acknowledgement that the main body of direct action protesters told the police, city officials, and the media ahead of time exactly what they planned to do: shut the WTO down by gridlocking the streets. Nobody believed them. The police didn't need to gather information so much as treat it credibly.

What was included in the report, however, makes for compelling enough reading. It's a story of no planning for worst case scenario, combined with alack of resources necessary to do the job. Police on November 30, the major day of protests, were badly outnumbered and badly disorganized. That admission, from the police themselves, will color all of the remaining examinations of what went wrong.