Neocon- Military Split: Cakewalk vs casualties 100's of K GI's to Fight & Occupy?

For the record, Rumsfeld has never predicted a cakewalk. He has repeatedly said it would not be so.

As for the strategy (a large air campaign with a relatively small ground component), that is Myer's fault. What happened here is, we have a bunch of Air Force weenies who believe that a ground war can be won from the air. Rumsfeld made the mistake of listening to them. You cannot win a war like this without a significant ground component, despite their theorizing.

I am admitting here that the initial strategy was flawed. They should have sent a larger ground component in from the start. They are currently in the process of correcting that mistake, but the forces due to arrive soon (notably the 4 ID, elements of the 1 AD, the 2 ACR-L, and the 3 ACR) will have to make a rolling start.

Here is where the real mistake was made: they started the ground war without waiting for the 4 ID to arrive. This is probably the single most powerful division on the planet, and its addition to the initial ground force would have roughly doubled the combat power available in theater. We would have had Baghdad surrounded by now.

As it is, it should be kept in mind that despite this mistake, we are still doing very well. 32 KIA so far (including the 4 today in a suicide bombing); compare this to the 147 KIA lost mostly in the 4 days of ground combat during Gulf War I, and you will see that despite how it is being reported, the casualties are extremely light on our side. We are still close to Baghdad, we have taken much of the country from Saddam already, an entire Iraqi Corps has been dispatched, the RG is being pounded daily, the regime's command and control has been smashed, we are threatening Baghdad from 3 directions... It is still going well, just not as quickly as everyone hoped.

As it is, the 3 ID and 101 AA are pausing to wait for the 4 ID. When 4 ID arrives, expect things to start moving quickly again. Mistake rectified...

As for occupation, it will take a large number of troops (maybe not a couple of hundred thousand, but more than 50,000 by far). It will also take several years. Also, keep in mind that Iran and Syria will be dealt with one way or another afterwards, and this will necessitate keeping a large force there for a while.

As for rebuilding, I expect the UN/international community to help to some degree with this. They will want a piece of the Iraq pie, if not a piece of the fighting. Also, the budgetary supplement recently proposed sets aside a sizeable chunk for initial rebuilding eforts, so it's not as if that portion is unfunded. Also, much of Iraq's infrastructure is being left alone - communications, water, oil industry, power, bridges, dams, etc - and will not need to be rebuilt. Specifically, the oil fields are being captured pretty much intact (a few destroyed wells, but over 95% intact); this will make rebuilding much easier to afford.

 

Here's a story from the LA Times. What gets me is not only the fact that it looks like (from this and other stories) that the administration ignored intelligence from CIA, etc. that did not fit into their optimistic vision of how the war was going to happen, but the quote below about underestimating nationalism. If anything, the last 200 years have shown that you should overly compensate for nationalism in your evaluation and planning and hope it's less virulent than you estimate when operations begin.
_______________

Plan's Defect: No Defectors
The U.S. has failed to pry Iraqi leaders away from Saddam Hussein. The miscalculated effort could prolong the war, some officials say.
By Bob Drogin and Greg Miller
Times Staff Writers

March 28, 2003

WASHINGTON -- A highly publicized U.S. campaign to persuade senior Iraqi military and civilian leaders to surrender has failed to produce any significant defections, and U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that those closest to President Saddam Hussein are unlikely to give up.

The effort now appears to be one of several miscalculations in a high-stakes U.S. strategy to use bombing, secret contacts and inducements -- including cash payments -- to key Iraqi leaders to quickly overthrow Hussein.

"We underestimated their capacity to put up resistance," said a Bush administration official who requested anonymity. "We underestimated the role of nationalism. And we overestimated the appeal of liberation."

U.S. officials note that the war is just a week old, and they say that the sentiment among Iraqi military leaders could change quickly if Hussein's forces around Baghdad are routed by American-led troops.

But a U.S. intelligence official said no cracks have appeared in Hussein's command structure as U.S.-led British troops fight their way toward the capital.

"I think the inner circle are in it for the long haul," the intelligence official said Thursday. The estimated two dozen members of Hussein's inner command include his two sons, Uday and Qusai, other members of his extended family and ruling Arab Socialist Baath Party stalwarts who have survived numerous purges.

The U.S. effort to encourage defections, run jointly by the Pentagon and the CIA, has been scaled back sharply since last weekend. "The negotiations went nowhere," said a former senior CIA official. "All of them have proved futile."

He and other experts on Iraq said using telephones, cell phones and e-mail or relying on Iraqi defectors to contact senior Iraqi officials was problematic from the start because Hussein's secret police and spy services tightly monitor electronic communications in the country.

The former official and others willing to talk about the effort requested anonymity because of the sensitive topic.

The effort may have had a second goal, they said. It might have also been designed to cast suspicion on Hussein loyalists in hopes of sowing top-level turmoil. Hussein has imprisoned or killed anyone suspected of disloyalty in the past, and he crushed two coup attempts backed by the CIA in the mid-1990s.

A CIA spokesman said that reaching out to Iraqi officials to put them under suspicion indicates "an active imagination," but he declined to comment further. Nor would he comment on whether Hussein or his aides might have used the contacts to mislead U.S. officials.

In the Afghanistan war, the CIA disbursed millions of dollars in cash to buy information or loyalty from local warlords. Intelligence officials declined to say what they have offered to Iraqi leaders, but they made it clear that they are prepared to cut deals.

"The principal inducement is not killing them," one U.S. official said. But he confirmed that cash payments and other inducements are on the table. "If it's determined that's what it's going to take to get some commander to have a large chunk of troops lay down their arms, that would be a price worth paying."

Nathaniel Kern, an Arabist who has visited Iraq repeatedly and knows a number of Iraqi officials, said a plan that relies on Iraqi defectors using cell phones to call Iraqi officials to negotiate surrender is absurd.

"Over the years, any Iraqi officials I've been in contact with call me on the phone only when they're outside of Iraq," said Kern, who heads a Washington-based consulting firm. "They won't go into questions of substance in e-mail. They say, 'Merry Christmas,' and if come back and say, 'Happy New Year, how's life in Baghdad?' -- no reply."

The CIA and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency have spent years profiling the Iraqi military and government leadership, seeking vulnerabilities and signs of disloyalty.

"You try to build a database on all those people, what their likes and dislikes are, whether their family is interested in leaving the country," a military intelligence official said. "Some people's dossiers might be three pages long, sometimes it's just a paragraph."

The profiles are built on scraps of data from a distance, the official said. "It's really difficult to tell beforehand who's going to be receptive or not."

In recent weeks, White House, Pentagon and State Department officials repeatedly publicized their effort to reach out to Iraqi leaders through calls and e-mail, as well as with speeches by President Bush, the airdrop of more than 25 million leaflets and round-the-clock, Arabic-language radio broadcasts on five frequencies.

U.S. officials say the operation included clandestine meetings in and near Baghdad between Iraqi officials and operatives from Syrian and Saudi intelligence services who were among those acting as U.S. surrogates.

Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said face-to-face meetings "continue to a certain degree" but appear less likely to produce major defections or surrenders with each passing day.

He also questioned the Pentagon's leaflet drops over Iraq.

"We're still committing substantial numbers of flights to leaflets," Rockefeller said. "I'm beginning to ask the question why, because it doesn't seem to be working."

It's unclear how many of the approximately 4,500 Iraqis now in allied custody surrendered because of the U.S. appeals and how many were captured in battle. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, more than 80,000 Iraqi troops surrendered or were captured in the U.S.-led coalition's 100-hour ground assault.

Current and former intelligence officials criticize the Pentagon for overly optimistic assessments and predictions of how Iraqis would respond to a U.S. invasion.

Judith Yaphe, the chief CIA analyst on Iraq during the Gulf War, said the Pentagon this time relied on overly optimistic assessments and predictions from Iraqi opposition groups in exile, particularly the London-based Iraqi National Congress. The CIA, she and current officials said, has been more skeptical of such claims.

"It was a fantasy," said Yaphe, who teaches at the National Defense University in Washington. "They had a strategic vision that we would face no opposition, that everyone would surrender, that Iraqis would throw rose petals and rice, and people would welcome us as conquering liberators. Clearly those judgments were not based on reality."

A current intelligence official

offered a similar assessment.

"The intelligence community was not overly optimistic at all," said the official, who is involved in discussions on Iraq.

"There was very healthy debate on all the key issues: Who's going to hold together? Who's going to defect? Who's going to fight?"

But the official said many in the analytical community were convinced that administration hawks had little interest in hearing pessimistic assessments. Some were also concerned that CIA Director George J. Tenet and others appeared more focused on helping the White House make the case for war than on calling attention to potential problems.

Less clear is whether the CIA misjudged a tip from an informant in Baghdad that Hussein and his sons would be sleeping at Dora Farm, a heavily guarded compound belonging to Hussein's daughter, Hala, near Baghdad University. The war began when U.S. forces attacked the site before dawn March 20 with "bunker-buster" bombs and Tomahawk missiles.

The CIA spokesman insisted Thursday that the report that Hussein was at Dora Farm was "as ironclad as you can get" and that "not a shred of doubt" has challenged that view within the agency. He said the CIA still has not concluded that Hussein is alive, despite his repeated appearances on Iraqi television.

Some experts on Iraq remain skeptical, however, noting that the Clinton administration fired a volley of cruise missiles at the same compound -- also relying on intelligence that Hussein was there -- at the outset of Operation Desert Fox, a 70-hour bombing campaign in December 1998. Neither Hussein nor his daughter was present at the time, Iraqi officials said later.

A former intelligence official said the Dora Farm complex is about 700 yards long and 300 yards wide. It sits on a sandy alluvial plain on a sliver of land that juts into the Tigris River. Before the war, Hussein often kept his presidential yacht at a nearby dock.

High walls surround the eastern corner of the compound. Inside are five major villas and about 10 smaller buildings used as barracks, guard posts and supply depots by members of the Special Security Organization, the Special Republican Guard and other security teams.

Sen. Rockefeller insists that the CIA had "a real target of opportunity."

But Rockefeller faulted the Bush administration for counting on the intense bombing that followed the first night's airstrike to provide the leverage to get Iraqi leaders to switch sides.

"There was such faith in 'shock and awe' it led to the conclusion it had to be a terribly short war," he said. "I think we're in for a much longer haul than we expected."

 

One interesting note on the surrenders: most of the Iraqi army isn't doing anything. What I mean is, that they are just sitting there, in some cases even refusing orders to move and act coming from Baghdad (we know this from listening to radio intercepts).

Part of our strategy involved(s) convincing the Iraqi army to sit the conflict out. Not necessarily capturing and detaining them, but just sidelining them. It appears that while some of the army has decided to fight, an even larger portion is simply sitting there doing nothing. They are not waiting in defensive positions, they are just waiting. For example, there is an entire Corps to the east of our forces that has not done a single thing since the start of the war. We have bypassed this force, and they have not moved to attack our rear or flank. They are just sitting there.

Most of the fighting being reported is coming from the Fedayeen Saddam and Al Quds, irregular militias who are fanatical Saddam supporters. The regular army isn't doing a whole lot.

I will say this: we certainly underestimated these irregular militias. While they are not strategically important, they are proving to be far more of a nuisance than expected.

 

Also, does anyone remember this story from last summer... I was only able to find this Nov. column from a San Diego paper after a quick look...
________________
Cowboys and Indians. Cops and robbers. They were childhood games with lots of action. "Bang bang, you're dead." And the best part was, you never had to stay dead longer than about 30 seconds. Everyone could get up and start over.

As America approaches actual warfare with Iraq – one involving real bombs and real bullets – I find it disquieting that the Pentagon's preparations have included some adult-style cowboys and Indians.

Adult-style? Well, the budget for war games this year was pretty grown-up, close to a quarter-billion dollars. More than 13,000 troops, sailors and aviators were sent into mock hostilities.

And here's the part that rekindles memories of childhood fun: When the "virtual" combat of war games showed U.S. ships theoretically sunk and American lives lost – which, somewhat chillingly, they did – those running the show blew a whistle and ordered the action to start over.

It was "Bang bang, you're not dead."

Except for Army Times, a Gannett publication, the military exercise in late summer – a possible tuneup for war on Iraq – claimed scant attention in U.S. media. But foreign correspondents filed rollicking accounts about flag officers who were frustrated by battle reverses which faithful computers insisted were occurring.

One participant who didn't think it a bit funny is the feisty Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper. Like many retired officers, this 64-year-old warrior earns consulting fees for taking part in simulated conflict. Van Riper's assignment this time was to play the evil dictator of a rogue Middle Eastern nation facing attack by the United States.

Sound like someone we know?

In the company of fellow experts at the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., Van Riper assumed his enemy role with a gusto that surprised and eventually annoyed rival commanders. His tactics caught the "Blue" (American) forces off guard. An alarming number of Blue warships were theoretically sent to the bottom of the Arabian Gulf.

What happened next? Here's how The Manchester Guardian reports it:

"Faced with an abrupt and embarrassing end to the most expensive and sophisticated military exercise in U.S. history, the Pentagon top brass simply pretended the whole thing had not happened. They ordered their lost troops back to life and 'refloated' the sunken fleet. Then they instructed the enemy forces to look the other way as Marines performed amphibious landings.

"Eventually, Van Riper got so fed up with all this cheating that he refused to play any more. . . . He thereafter sat on the sidelines making abrasive remarks until the three-week war game – grandiosely entitled Millennium Challenge – staggered to a star-spangled conclusion on Aug. 15 with a U.S. 'victory.' "

How had the wily Van Riper crossed up those attackers? The general had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small merchant and pleasure craft, as well as planes, which he kept buzzing across the Gulf as the exercise got under way. Instead of sending orders in the conventional way (by radio signals that could be intercepted) Van Riper utilized five-a-day prayer calls from the minarets of countless mosques, and even motorcycle dispatch riders.

The evil dictator's seemingly harmless surface and aircraft suddenly turned deadly, ramming Blue vessels with high explosives the way the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole was bushwhacked at Yemen two years ago.

All was just make-believe, of course. But Van Riper's mock toll included 16 troop carriers with thousands of Marines aboard. As noted with alarm around the Norfolk command center, if the forgoing were actually to happen, it would add up to the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.

A wake-up call? We'd hardly guess so from the Joint Forces response. Rather than concede failure, the war games monitors called timeout. They decided Van Riper had done things in a way highly unlikely in real combat. He snapped back: "Yes, and nobody thought anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Center."

Umpires insisted there be no more prayer calls or other unconventional communication. Let defenders rely on trusted radio and cell phones. Next, with men and ships raised from watery graves, the top brass told Van Riper he must remove his air defenses from beaches where Blue forces were scheduled to land.

That's when the gruff Marine took himself out, predicting: "When the real fighting starts, American troops will be sent into battle with a set of half-baked tactics that have not been put to the test."

Not quite like cowboys and Indians, maybe.

 

Interestingly the exact mistake made by the US in Nam and the USSR in Afghanistan.

I should clarify that I am not a big proponent of the " This is another VietNam" stance..I personally think that the 'war' part of this will be over fairly quickly...It's the "peace' that I think will take a lot longer than is being predicted...

 

MacBeth:

The VietCong Saddam's Fedayeen ain't. Only similar in the sense that both are/were irregular forces, aside from that they are very different organizations.

Once the regime is gone, these people will have nothing to fight for. These are not patriotic indigineous people who seek only to oust the foreign military presence; these are brainwashed whackos with a cultist mentality who worship Saddam Hussein. Their morale will be far easier to break, as it has a tangible (and breakable) focus - the regime in Baghdad... Also enjoy virtually no popular support among the people. Also poorly armed and trained. Also fighting in vastly different terrain that favors us...

 

Again...not that I think this is another Nam, or Afghanistan, as stated, but merely to argue with your points as intellectual excercise:

1) The VietCOng weren't the VietCong...until they were the VietCong, if you get my meaning. In other words, they were dismissed because of not meeting certains standards we assumed applied...until it turned out that our standards were wrong. Your assumptions are exactly the same kind of reasoning...

2) Re: brainwashed whackoes...How do you know? How do you think the VietCong were described early one? Look it up, you might find some very, very farmiliar language...Same goes for portrayal of MH etc. in USSR a while back...

3) Re: terrain...it is similar to Afghanistan, though, and has in common with Nam the fact that it is terrain the enmey is a lot more used to than we are, with a lot more flexible lines of both communication and supply. But as I said, I basically agree with the view that this won't take all that long ifrom the conventional sense.

 

Ok, here's what I don't get: I've never read, seen or heard a state official say this war would be a cakewalk. In fact, I remember distinctly that Rumsfeld, et al, this could be a long war. I've heard several press conferences with him stating that he refused to put a timeline on it because you cannot predict it.

So where is everyone getting this cakewalk crap? I'll tell ya. The same retired military analysts who are now criticizing General Franks' war plan, which I've heard called brilliant by several non-retired military personell. These were they guys telling us that we would walk over the Iraqi's. They were just as impressed with how fast our troops made ground as the rest of the world. Then when things slow down as we start staging and setting up supply lines, they start saying it's going slower than expected and not as well as expected..............Hello!!!!!!!!!! We've been at war for about two weeks and only had 15 combat fatalities. Incredible!! Why is it that all I'm hearing and seeing on CNBC, CNN, CBS, etc. That our warplan is unsound? Everyone but FOX that is. Don't get me wrong, I can see right thru FOX's "Balanced" and "Fair" reporting. I mean who the hell has to advertise that they are "Balanced and Fair"?. Obviously FOX (R. Murdoch) is more right biased, but they are the only channel not jumping on the criticizm bandwagon.

I don't consider myself left or right. I laugh at the hardliners on each side. They make total fools of themselves. What's ironic to me is the way this board reflects the broad American diversity in it's views. I just finished an hour's worth of reading the posts about the war in the Hangout. All I can say is that when this is over, there will be some people called out for some of the **** they've been spewing. ON BOTH SIDES!!!!! C'mon guys... throw away the partismanship and see things for what they are.

We do not know what's going on because we are not there. We are getting information from a 3rd party who has their own agenda. This being said, I firmly support our troops and our government now that we are at war. We are all free to criticize, but only because of those who have fought for our freedom. To those who routinely bash our country. ****ing leave. Please.

 

I gotta say it's really distubed me to see the type of arrogance we've seem from the Pentagon. The military people are saying we're undermanned and didn't train for this type of combat and the civilian leadership is saying everything is going according to plan and that victory is certain. It's disappointing to see us repeat the same stupid old mistakes.

 

Frikken edit come back!!!

 

I've never read, seen or heard a state official say this war would be a cakewalk.

They did use "shock and awe" verbage. They did say that they were expecting the enemy soldiers to surrender when given the chance rather than die for a man that they hated. The implications were clearly there, if not the exact verbage.

Something else to consider is that the Washington press corp does not think for itself. They are very used to getting handouts from their government contacts. Thus, if the press was saying that this was going to be an easy war, they were likely parroting the words from their sources.

BTW, I did hear one Pentagon report that stated the reason we were in this mess was that Rumsfeld wanted to win this war "on the cheap".

 

I already hinted at why we're in this "mess" as you call it, No Worries. (it is not a "mess" - it is going very well by every measure - but that is another discussion). An Air Force man is in charge of the Pentagon. Rumsfeld is a former Navy man, and he has a distinct tendency to place alot of emphasis on high-ticket technology items, like aircraft, to win wars.

What we had here was a bunch of Air Force (and Navy, to a lesser extent) guys telling Rumsfeld that air power with a small ground contingent would be able to win the war, and fairly quickly. It is not so much that they miscalculated that the Iraqis would all surrender - I can assure you that the original plan called for the entire Iraqi army to fight; surrenders would just be welcome (every military plan generally assumes the worst case). The problem was that Rumsfeld, who was predisposed towards their arguments, listened when the air power enthusiasts told him that they would win quickly with minimal ground force commitment. That was bad advice.

What he should have been told was that we'd win more quickly and with less effort and casualties with overwhelming air power and a *large* ground contingent.

Iraq had at the start about 380,000 troops in its army (counting RG and SRG) plus about 40,000 irregulars. To think that two army divisions - one of which is light with no armor at all - plus Marines (also light infantry) could just roll over an army about 5 times its size quickly with air power was bad thinking. They totally disregarded several thousand years' worth of lessons in ground combat, thinking that Kosovo could be replicated wherever they went. That was stupid.

As I said in an earlier post, they are now rectifying the situation - sending the ground components that were needed from the start. What have we lost because of this mistake? In terms of actual military strategic importance really nothing except for time, and not all that much of that. But it has given many the misperception that things are going badly, when the reality is that things are going very well. By every single measure, very well.

But if anyone should be held really responsible for for the error in planning, it should be Gen. Myers. I know that he has been a big proponent of the "air power alone can win wars" theories for a while, and I think that that theory has been exposed as faulty.

 

Yeah, but treeman, the 4th was held up because of the Turks. Franks decided to move and establish 3 fronts. That was accomplished and now they are just waiting on the 4th to get in place and to secure supply lines to each of the 4 fronts. IMO, I don't see the error in doing this......IF YOU CAN. I mean, really, if you can set up shop right at their front door without any resistance then by all means why wouldnt you do it?

No Worries, I seriously doubt that anyone from the Pentagon would go on record critisizing the war plan. Rumsfeld would have their jobs.

 

This Robert Novak column from a few days ago documents where the "cakewalk" came from (and also supports some of Tree's thinking)...
_________________

WASHINGTON -- "There were some who were supportive of going to war with Iraq who described it as a cakewalk," Tim Russert told Donald Rumsfeld on NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday.

The secretary of Defense seemed surprised. "I never did," he replied. "No one I know in the Pentagon ever did." While Rumsfeld spoke the literal truth, his response was still disingenuous.

Rumsfeld had been asked about the cakewalk description several times, rejecting it but still defending the premises for such a judgment. While its source was not technically a Pentagon official, it was a longtime Rumsfeld friend and lieutenant: Kenneth Adelman, appointed by the secretary to the Defense Policy Board (an outside advisory panel). In demanding military action against Saddam Hussein, Adelman has promised repeatedly there would be no military difficulty.

U.S. general officers I have questioned over the last year were angry that anybody -- particularly an official adviser -- should spread the impression this would not be a real war, with killing and dying.

Nevertheless, the cakewalk image took hold among some of the strongest hawks in Congress and in the public mind. That has led to widespread surprise and dismay in beholding what Rumsfeld accurately told Russert: "A war is a war. It's a brutal thing."

Nevertheless, Adelman and Rumsfeld both overestimated the gap between U.S. and Iraqi military prowess. According to Defense Department sources, Rumsfeld at first insisted that vast air superiority and a degraded Iraqi military would enable 75,000 U.S. troops to win the war.

Gen. Tommy Franks, the theater commander-in-chief, convinced Rumsfeld to send 250,000 (augmented by 45,000 British). However, the Army would have preferred a much deeper force, leading to anxiety inside the Pentagon in the first week of war.

Unlike Vietnam, strongest advocates of action against the Iraqi regime had estimated the lowest troop needs. Former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, named by Rumsfeld to head the Defense Policy Board, predicted in February 2001 that Hussein would be gone within a year. I asked Perle whether a major U.S. expeditionary force would be needed. "No, certainly not," he replied. "I don't think that's necessary."

Adelman, Perle's Defense Policy Board colleague who held important government posts as Rumsfeld's subordinate, was interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Dec. 6, 2001. "I don't agree that you need an enormous number of American troops," said Adelman. Hussein's army "is down to one-third than it was before, and I think it would be a cakewalk." Since then, Adelman has stuck to that estimate.

Last Nov. 23, I asked Rumsfeld whether he agreed with Adelman. "Well, I really don't," he said, but then indicated he understood how his friend came to that conclusion. "Saddam Hussein's forces are considerably weaker today than" in 1991, while "our forces are considerably stronger." He suggested that only Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" -- presumably chemical weapons -- could "change the equation." No such weapons have yet been used, but the Iraqis have put up stout resistance.

While Army officers would have preferred a larger commitment, even what was finally approved for Operation Iraqi Freedom was reduced when the 4th Infantry Division was denied Turkey as a base to invade northern Iraq.

The Defense and State departments point fingers. Secretary of State Colin Powell is criticized for not flying to Ankara to convince the Turkish government. The Pentagon is criticized for not immediately dispatching the division via the Red Sea.

"We have never done something like this with this modest a force at such a distance from its bases," retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a division commander in the first Gulf War, told the BBC Monday, contending Rumsfeld had erred.

A bigger stir was made in the Defense establishment by the column in Tuesday's Washington Post by retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a noted writer on military affairs. E-mails and phone calls flowed through the Pentagon agreeing with Peters's view that Rumsfeld committed a "serious strategic miscalculation" in not sending enough troops and relying on the "shock and awe" bombing campaign.

Yet, civilian and military sources high in the government now believe coalition forces, short on manpower, must rely on air power to win the battle of Baghdad. Clearly, it is no cakewalk.

 

bigman:

Actually, the 4 ID's equipment waited off the Turkish coast for about a week and a half to two weeks after the parliamentary vote in the hopes that they would change their minds. They should have turned around and set for the Suez as soon as the gavel hit the table... But they didn't.

All I am saying is that with the combat power of the 4 ID, we would probably not have had these problems with LOCs, we would have been able to advance faster, the battles that the Marines have been engaged in could have been avoided, and Baghdad would probably be surrounded right now (the RG divisions around the city could have been dealt with by now).

As it is, it is not safe to simply throw the 3 ID at the three RG divisions confronting it. I personally do not doubt that it can dispatch those divisions, but it would have a much easier time of it with the 4 ID at its side. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

Like I said, everything is going very well. But it could have gone even better. A general's job is to achieve victory with the least possible amount of casualties, and in the least amount of time possible; the generals who proposed throwing only a single heavy armored division into Iraq should have done more to ensure such a victory. They should have thrown another heavy division into the fight from the start. IMHO, of course.

 

I agree that having the 4th in place would've been nice. But, like you, I believe the war is going well. In spite of the Novak column, the death totals do not lie. If things had gone perfect, lets say, the end result will probably play out the same. I'm expecting heavy urban fighting. And I suspect that we won't find any WMD. Putting myself in Sadaam's shoes, I'd ship that crap out to any willing terrorist so that in the end he could say "see, no WMD". Of course in that scenario we'd find out that he did actually have them, but it would be too late. But to me that's more for the arguement that this war is the best path to take because who's to say he wouldn't have sold the WMD if there wasn't a war? (the original premise for the war)

 

If there is no war, then for him to sell WMD, he would have to ensure that it could never be traced (even with weak circumstantial evidence) back to him. Thus he would be taking a big risk and would certainly be inviting massive retaliation and war against him and strong worldwide support against him if this were ever detected.

If there is a war and he is facing defeat or death and has nothing to lose anymore, then perhaps he might unleash them (either use them or sell them to Al-Queda) to get in a last punch in before perishing.

 

You freakin' people in the middle are nuts. Runnin' around with your Bush and Gore stickers. Holding your 'We support the Troops right to Protest' signs. Chaining yourself to abortion clinics because women have the right to choose. You guys are crazy.

 

From Time Magazine, dated Jan 27, 2003:

So whose fault is it again?