Col. McGregor, a maverick in the Army, had Rummy's ear. Newt Gingrich of all people was also in on the deliberations. They wanted to sweep into Baghdad kind of like we did with only 50,000 troops. 50K in a city the size of NY with 6 million people. The Army initially wanted an overwhelming force of 500,000 troops. They settled on a hybrid plan of 140,000 troops (plus those 2000 Polish troops). And the result of this is the mess we know & hate today. Gen. Shinseki was asked a few wks. befor the war by Sen. Levin "how many forces needed after combat is over?" Shinseki - "something on the order of several hundred thousand. a fairly significant piece of geography with ethnic tensions that can create other problems." Rumsfeld said Shinseki's estimate is "far from the mark." Wolfowitz concurred "the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is off the mark." The Army thought they were full of sh!t of course and told Congress so. The dissenters in the Army were pushed to the side.
Bush is getting ripped a new one from the media over the last two weeks. It's like they are making up for four years of dormancy. If Bush wins, his second term could be a rough one with the media hounding him like a free media should do to any president.
actaully pushing for lower troops is the right thing to do. in the long run Rumsfled's tactics will be seen as groundbreaking and genius.He is laying the blueprint for modern warfare that relies on highly skilled soldiers that utilize technology to their fullest advantage. utilizing the old school of thought (such as we did in vietnam) our casuality rates would be significantly higher... and all of you would be complaining about that. Rumsfeld is the envelope pucher.. he knows his way isnt going to be fully utilzed.. so he pushes the extreme.The same goes for the Generals.They know they wont get their way.. so they push for the extreme. could we have used more troops in the begining?Maybe-maybe not.as a member of the 101st airborne veterans group I have talked to poeple who were involved... Ive heard some of the guys involved in the assauls comment that there may have been to many "non-combats" over there.That most of those troops held back the operations and dragged the whole thing out... Of coursen this comes from Air Assault guys who also believe the the 3rd ID shouldnt have been the spear (they believe as I-that 101 and 82nd should have been utilzed as the shock and awe). its very easy to sit here on monday and come up with answers.. but the truth of the matter is that you dont have the game sitting at the chess table with you every time.You dont see the action of the play until the move.
First, It was a great episode of Frontline. I thought it gave a very good portrayal of Rumsfeld and his leadership. It showed the good and the bad. Perhaps most telling, to me, was how he returned to his true love, reforming the Military, so soon after Baghdad fell. He still is focused on making the Military lighter, stronger faster. However, I have to wonder if he's carrying around the wrong lessons from the cold war. Back then, we had to get the most bang for our buck because we perceived that we had an enemy that was nearly our equal. We had to squeeze the most out of every defense dollar. Force multiplication, blah, blah, blah. Now, we don’t. We spend so much on defense that we can waste 50% and still be just fine. It changes the nature of the thought process. Now we can cover the base threats with 50% of our defense budget and use the other 50% to prepare less likely or less important problems, like occupations. We are sure we will win so we need to spend money on things other than just trying to win. Rumesfeld is still the workhorse of Team B but Team B's time may have passed.
Rumsfeld's job was not to defeat Saddam's army. Any moron could have done that. Saddam's army hardly even fought back (which makes the comparison to Vietnam, where the Viet Cong would sacrifice a thousand men to hold an inch of territory, ridiculous). No, Rumsfeld's job was to enforce stability. That means protecting weapons caches and not surrending entire cities to a few thousand ill-equipped insurgents which allows them to grow stronger. The idea that doubling American firepower would have resulted in a an American bloodbath doesn't even make sense. In other words, Rumsfeld has been a complete failure, which is why he'll be shoved out the door even if Bush wins.
A friend of my family's is over in Iraq now (has been there since March) and was part of the command staff during the combat phase (he got back in June of 2003). Anyway, he just describes it as a mess, saying there was no plan for anything to happen once we defeated the army. He is just as disgusted at the incompetence of the who are running this thing as most people in this country.
Is this the October Surprise now that the 380 ton story has been debunked? I wish the liberals would stay on message.
Debunked? Uh, anyway you slice it there are still 380 tons of explosive that was accounted for prior to our invasion, was being tightly monitored up until the point that inspectors had to leave and is now is not to be found. Regardless of wether it happened while we were in control of the facility, the invasion directly led to its dissapearence.
This is old news, Rumsfield wanted to fight Afganistan part 2. The 50,000 plan was inspired by Cheney who wanted to go in Oct. 02.
So instead of sending what the military officials considered an adequate number of soldiers, we send 1/4? And Rummy wanted 1/10? Just **********ing great. How the hell do politicians make these kinds of decisions to go to war, and not listen to what the military PROFESSIONALS recommend? There needs to be a law forcing the goddamn politicians to give the Army everything they request going into a conflict, or it doesn't happen.
This is what gets me. I don't really think the US "defeated" Saddam's army. They really never fought back or defended anything, especially to the extent Baghdad was supposed to be defended. Terrorists and Saddam aside, who do you think the US is fighting right now?
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Check out the monthly losses. You have to be a total lunatic to think this was a good plan. Or an al-Qaeda or Iranian supporter.