WSJ: Gen Batiste and Rumsfeld

See, there you go again, buying into the underlying assumption that those generals were right when you don't know that.

 

Let me ask it this way.

Iraq has a population of 26 million and our troop levels have genearally been around the 150K level, more or less. That works out to 1 soldier per 173 Iraqis. So, if that is an insufficient ratio, what would the optimal ratio be?

 

Yes, there could have been very shortly after the war. It was all planned out. I have posted the links and discussions of the plans including commentary by wolfowitz, Allawi, and others directly involved. The wise guys like Rumsfeld, and others at the whitehouse cancelled all of those plans which not only had prepared for the use of the Iraqi troops, and security but things as detailed as garbage collection.

 

What exactly leads you to believe the "underlying assumption" that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney were right?

 

Disbanded.

 

Wow! Eight whole months to prepare for the invasion of a country? That IS a long time.

We had plenty of time, but Bush needed to invade before the weapons inspection teams reported that Iraq was clean.

 

It doesn't matter if he spent 3 years in the build up to war. If there are still other options on the table, then it is a rush to war.

 

I do not recall saying that they were right with regard to this question.

 

disbanded and allowed to keep their weapons.

 

That certainly seems to be your underlying assumption since you are challenging someone's assumption that more troops would have made the occupation smoother.

 

Its not a matter of being a yes man or not having civillian leadership run the military but any good leader knows that you take into consideration what key subordinates say especially when those subordinates are the ones who implement the policy. Civillian leadership of the military responsible is primarily in regard to overall policy, when and where the military deploys too, decisions regarding how that is carried out is usually the purview of the generals. As Batiste says in the article the problem with Vietnam and with the current invasion of Iraq is that the civillian leadership has been dictating more and more how the invasion should be carried out and as such isn't following basic military principles while they are either ignoring suggestions from generals or have cowed generals from even offering advice counter to what the civillian leadership says.

Ignoring the advice of subordinates or cowing them into silence is a terrible way to run a business let alone a war.

 

In the end, it was Rumsfelds call on how to run the invasion and how deal with the immediate aftermath. He &$%*%( it up. When I'm in charge of something here at work and it's botched, whether my fault or not it's my ass.


Rumsfelds decisions; Rumfelds responsibility. He should be held respossible for our current situation.

 

I'm kinda amused by the notion of these generals being cowed, as if Rumsfeld were Stalin about to ship them off to the Gulag Archipeligo (sp?).

 

So you are basically saying that there is a gulf between planning and execution? The only two things we know for sure is that the plan Rumsfeld went with has been as "successful" as it has been. For all we know, Rumsfeld is a genius and the current situation in Iraq is the absolute best case that we could hope for. Of course, Rumsfeld et al did not plan for the current cluster f*ck in Iraq, so Rumsfeld genius is in question.

We do know that Gen. Eric Shinseki thought more troups were necessary. The state department came up with a similar assessment. We do know that Rumsfeld made both the Pentagon and State reassess and "consider" sending less troups (or consider finding a new job). We now also know that Gen Batiste who has on-the-ground experience in Iraq thought more troups were needed (and was told by Rumsfeld to make do with what you got.)

IMO Gen Batiste's opinion carries great weight.

 

These generals are careerists and loyalty is one of the defining features of career military officers. This isn't without precedent since that is exactly what many generals did during Vietnam. Didn't you read the article? They also already had the example of Gen. Shinseki who was shown the door for publicly disagreeing with Rumsfeld and most of these figures being the type of people they are prefer to stay in the command structure rather than out. That's why Gen. Batiste agonized so much over his decision to leave and to speak out since he realized that his higher duty was to get the message out to leadership and he couldn't do that in the command structure where it was tow the line or be out.

 

We don't know they were right. We do know Rumsfeld was wrong. Given the way things turned out, the excuses given by people about some of the things that went wrong, and the overall knowledge of the career military generals, it is far easier to presume they were right, then to take the position that they were definitely wrong.

If there are 50 sites of interest but only enough troops to guard 30 of them, and then people get mad because 20 sites get looted. We don't know that having enough troops to guard 50 sites, but it is probably a safe bet.

Either way we do know that Rumsfeld was wrong, and if I am going to plan for the future I would ask the people who weren't wrong, and had an alternate plan that now seems far more feasible than the one Rumsfeld bullied through.

So I guess I changed my assessment from the Generals who we know were right, to the Generals who had a much more feasible and workable plan.

 

I put it all who support Shinseki's cabal to provide a specific troop level figure and the units from which they will be drawn. I see no one has taken me up on that.

 

If there would have been difference between 150K and 500k, then Rumsfeld was not wrong. Your argument is an intellectually lazy one, though I guess it's the best you can do.