[Reuters] U.S. Prewar Intelligence Saw Possible Iraq Insurgency

I love whenever rockHEAD posts something over in the Hangout, then there's like 4 threads that show up over here from different authors with the [subject] Title format.

 

http://bbs2.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84382

Jeff asked the guys in the GARM to start doing it and we have carried it over here, too.

 

well, duuuuhh. it didn't take a genius to forsee the possibility. anyone who didn't at least consider it wasn't being honest, which is why i laugh at those who point out the insurgency as an example of of how bush has mismanaged the war. of course there's an insurgency! these guys are die hard fanatics. we have to hunt them down and kill them, one by one.

 

The Bush administration didn't seem to see the possibility of an insurgency. At least that's not the way he sold the war to the public.

And if his administration did see the possibility then why do they seem so unprepared and unable to deal with it?

 

yeah weren't we supposed to be showered with flowers and candy and Vermont Teddy Bears?

 

Be careful, basso... you wouldn't want to spin yourself off the planet!


Keep D&D Civil!!

 

So, Rummy said he thought we'd be welcomed with open arms? He was wrong, so the **** what? That's not why we went to war, and anyone who's myopic enough to believe that, or insists on believing it despite all evidence to the contrary, simply wasn't paying attention in the 9 months prior (war rush) to the invasion. dare i say, it's time to move on.

 

Whats the point? Do we not enter wars now when their is a possibilty of insurgancy? Do liberals really believe that we should bend over like the French at any possibility of military action?

 

you don't think that's a disservice to the soldiers, the families of those soldiers and the public in general to give people false hopes?

 

I'm surprised no one else said it, but obviously US Prewar Intel hates America.

 

i seriously doubt any soldiers were surprised to find some iraqis fought back. sheesh...

 

Yes he was wrong, and as a result we weren't prepared for what followed, there was looting, there is still kidnappings, our soldiers are ambushed, and blown up by IED's.

Yes he was wrong, but he hasn't been made responsible for that. Bush hasn't held anybody responsible for their mistakes that cost lives.

You can say 'so the **** what' if you want, but I prefer to see people held accountable for mistakes that cost lives. I expect a leader to take steps to correct mistakes.

Nobody said we went there to get a warm welcome. I was paying attention and no that the reason we were told we went there was that Saddam was a threat. The key reason he was a threat was WMD, and post 9/11 we can't wait on somebody to give WMD to terrorists. Well Saddam wasn't a threat to us, and he wasn't working with any terrorists that threatened us either.

It would be nice to move on, but instead we are stuck in Iraq with horrible conditions thanks to the mistakes that the administration made. Despite those mistakes, Bush doesn't take the blame, and he hasn't held anybody else accountable either.

It is time to move on... time to move on to a leader who take responsibility and hold those that make mistakes accountable.

 

That's why they carry weapons... even today!

 

This is WAR man, what do you expect?

It's kind of hard to imagine what desperate fighters who are only too happy to die for their cause will do. Weren't the events of 9/11 kind of unfathomable until they happened?

I suppose you want heads to roll over that, too.

 

You said it was unfathomable and couldn't be imagined, yet the title of this thread talks about intel which mentions it happening.

So the intel did fathom it and did imagine it.

Yes I wouldn't mind someone doing the right thing like Richard Clarke did and saying they made mistakes and failed the country with regards to 9/11. That may mean some people's heads should roll for their mistakes. Do you think people should be able to make mistakes without having to suffer the consequences?

Do you believe in accountability and responsibility from leadership?

 

Insurgency Not Anticipated
Chicago Tribune
August 3, 2004


WASHINGTON - According to the General in command, the U.S. went to war in Iraq without expectation of the violent insurgency that followed or a clear understanding of the psychology of the Iraqi people.

"We had a hope the Iraqis would rise up and become part of the solution," said former Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. military's Central Command until his retirement last August. "We just didn't know (about the insurgency)."

Interviewed Monday in connection with the publication of his memoir, "American Soldier," Franks also said he had expected large numbers of foreign troops to join the U.S. in its Iraq effort. Franks attributes the stresses on American forces in Iraq now, in part, to the failure of that to happen.

A product of officer candidates school instead of West Point, Franks is a 37-year Army veteran who was wounded three times as an artillery officer in Vietnam and served as assistant commander of the 1st Cavalry Division in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He is considered the architect of the U.S.'s initial victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he pioneered tactics involving heavy use of special operations troops.

In both book and interview, the retired general largely supported the administration's conduct of the war, and he said he admired President Bush for his leadership in both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts.

A Texan who attended the same high school as First Lady Laura Bush, Franks held out the possibility of campaigning for the president. Several prominent retired generals have begun doing so for Democratic nominee John Kerry.

As he noted in his book, Franks initially projected that troop strength in Iraq might have to rise to 250,000 for the U.S. to meet all of its objectives, but it never got higher than 150,000.

"The wild card in this was the expectation for much greater international involvement," he said in the interview. "I never cared whether the international community came by way of NATO or the United Nations or directly. ... We started the operation believing that nations would provide us with an awful lot of support."

Instead, the other members of the coalition the administration assembled have only about 22,000 soldiers in Iraq, and several nations have pulled out. Franks said he thinks the U.S. will have to maintain substantial numbers of troops in Iraq for three to five years.

Initial planning for the war centered on achieving a speedy victory in the major combat phases of the conflict followed by rapid reconstruction of the country, he said.

Though an insurgency was feared, there was no assumption it would happen, he said.

"I think there was not a full appreciation of the realities in Iraq - at least of the psychology of the Iraqis," he said.

"On the one hand," he continued, "I think we all believed that they hated the regime of Saddam Hussein. Over the last year, we have seen that come to pass. That's where the intelligence came from that allowed us to get the sons of Saddam Hussein.

"On the other hand, the psychology of the people - the mix of the Sunnis, the Shiites, the tribal elements and the Kurds - and what they would expect and tolerate in terms of coalition forces, their numbers, where they are and what they're doing in Iraq, I don't know that we made willful assumptions with respect to that."

Franks said he was not surprised when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked him to "dust off" Iraq war planning while the U.S. was still embroiled in fighting al-Qaida terrorists and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"At the same time we were conducting military operations in (Afghanistan), we were continuing to fly Operation Southern Watch and Operation Northern Watch and our young pilots flying over Iraq were being shot at on virtually ever occasion," he said. "Sen. John McCain, a man I respect, asked why in the world would we continue to let our pilots be shot at without taking more stringent action against Iraq."

Franks said he fully expected Hussein to use some form of weapons of mass destruction against the American-led invasion. He said he was told personally by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah that they existed.

In his book, Franks quotes Mubarak as saying: "We have spoken with Saddam Hussein. He is a madman. He has WMD-biologicals, actually - and he will use them on your troops."

Franks quotes Abdullah as telling him: "General, from reliable intelligence sources, I believe the Iraqis are hiding chemical and biological weapons."

On Monday, wire services reported that spokesmen for both rulers denied there were such warnings. "Such a claim is void of truth," said Mubarak spokesman Magad Abdel Fattah. A Royal Palace official in Jordan said, "His Majesty did not have information that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction."

Franks wrote that U.S. troops occupying Iraq discovered large supplies of raw materials and chemicals that could be used to manufacture weapons of mass destruction - likening them to "the equivalent of a disassembled pistol, lying on a table beside neatly arranged trays of bullets."

Franks had terse words for some in the administration.

He used an expletive in the book to describe the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of what he called their insistence on championing their individual services rather than thinking of the military as a whole.

In his book, Franks referred to Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy and one of Rumsfeld's close advisors, as "a theorist whose ideas were often impractical."

"I generally ignored his contributions," Franks wrote of one meeting.

He was critical of former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, saying in the book he "was better at identifying a problem than at finding a workable solution."

According to Franks, Secretary of State Colin Powell contacted him directly, without going through the chain of command, to voice his concern that the U.S. was invading Iraq with a comparatively small, highly-mobile force, instead of the kind of overwhelming massive force such as Powell deployed when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War.

Franks said he considered Powell's views as from a different time and situation.

Copyright 2004 Chicago Tribune
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_franks_080304,00.html

 

Growing Pessimism on Iraq
Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies

By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 29, 2004; Page A01

A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.


People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."

"Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.

"It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago."

...

"Everyone says Iraq certainly has turned out to be more intense than expected, especially the intensity of nationalism on the part of the Iraqi people," said Steven Metz, chairman of the regional strategy and planning department at the U.S. Army War College. But, he added, "I don't think the political discourse that we're in the middle of accurately reflects anything. There's a supercharged debate on both sides, a movement to out-state each side."

Reports from Iraq have made one Army staff officer question whether adequate progress is being made there.

"They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit strategy, but what I hear from the ground is that they aren't working," he said. "There's a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out."

He added: "I hope I'm wrong."

link

 

Franchiseblade has already taken most of my points but this is again another reason why even if you supported the invasion initionally you should still hold the Bush Admin accountable for the terrible job they've handled the war.

Basso what you and Giddyup are missing is that yes this is war and casualties and danger are to be expected. That is why good commanders always plan for the worst case scenario to try to limit casualties and danger.

What happened in Iraq though was that the Admin chose to not plan for the possibility of the worst and instead chose to downplay dangers that was widely predicted, not just by this report but by even those in the military such as then Army Chief of Staff Gen. Shinseki.

So instead of putting together a force that not only could defeat Saddam's army but one that could rapidly transition to peacekeeping, maintaining order and reconstruction we sent in an undermanned force not well trained or equipped to deal with the ensuing chaos to follow.

From reading and listening to many of the complaints from Iraqis it seems clear to me that most of the goodwill we could've garnered from deposing Saddam was lost almost immediately as the country descended into chaos.

If we had the forces necessary to secure the country within that first month of occupation I would've guessed that the insurgency wouldn't be as widespread as it is now.

 

From what I glean, this "intel" is very non-specific. It mentioned numerous scenarios-- one of which was the unrest that we see.

I'm sorry; I just don't believe in the miracle of The Armchair President.