Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
JCarew
Report: Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
Reuters
Saturday, March 29, 2003; 5:33 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially
more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq,
New Yorker Magazine reported.
In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on Monday,
the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up
to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be
sharply reduced and got his way.
"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every
turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner
as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he
didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."
It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander
Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied
access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and
miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.
"They've got no resources. He was so focused on proving his
point -- that the Iraqis were going to fall apart," the article, by
veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, cited an unnamed former
high-level intelligence official as saying.
A spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the
article. Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship
with the Army's upper echelons while he commands strong
loyalty from U.S. special operations forces, a key component
in the war.
He has insisted the invasion has made good progress since it
was launched 10 days ago, with some ground troops 50 miles
from the capital, despite unexpected guerrilla-style attacks on
long supply lines from Kuwait.
Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as
saying the war was now a stalemate.
Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been
expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision
guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems
with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the
article said.
"The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements
arrive," the former official said.
The article quoted the senior planner as saying Rumsfeld had
wanted to "do the war on the cheap" and believed that precision
bombing would bring victory.
Some 125,000 U.S. and British troops are now in Iraq. U.S.
officials on Thursday said they planned to bring in another
100,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of April.
2003 Reuters
unquote
Jim
PRO PATRIA
>
A report by unnamed and unidentified bullshit artist!
The 4th mech was supposed to land in Turkey but that went afoul and
had to be diverted. All the rest of the troops were already in the
pipeline and as of today total allied casualties from all causes are
less than 100, and there are a minimum estimated 40,000 Iraqi soldiers
pushing up daises.
Only Sylvester Stalone, and Hollywood can do better and they are all
make believe!
Some monday morning generals, need to stop smoking illegal substances!
The War is going Supper, and only those who seek to be fools or
muslims would think otherwise!
The freaking war is only 10 day's old and Saddam will be quartered and
drawn before Easter.
nukday
JCarew wrote:
>
> Report: Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
>
> Reuters
>
You mean Al Reuters?
No one outside of a limited number of people in the Pentagon,
not everyone gets to know, and the commanders on the ground in
the Gulf know what the OPLAN is. Anyone else talking, to include
retired generals, do not know what the hell they are talking about
when they refer to the PLAN. They do not know the phaselines,
they do not know the airflow, they do not know the allocation of
resources.
Growup little Jim. Saddam will lose. When the dust settles, we'll
have the record of all the negative nabobs and will joyfully
compare it to the real OPLAN. Just like these self important people
who talked the talk about how we were losing FOUR weeks into
the Afghanistan battle -
RICHARD COHEN, Washington Post, 11/6/01: "Whatever the
case, this war appears to be behind schedule. The administration,
of course, will not say so. But this administration is already
operating from a credibility deficit. . . . At the Pentagon,
the briefings more and more resemble the ones conducted daily
during the Vietnam War."
JACOB HEILBRUNN, Los Angeles Times, 11/4/01:
A young and inexperienced president from a dynasty surrounds
himself with experts. Early in his presidency, he announces a
global crusade on behalf of freedom. No price, he announces, is
too high to pay. Step by step, he becomes progressively
embroiled in a war in a small country mired in civil war and
located near a vital industrial region.
Sound familiar? This was the situation confronting John F.
Kennedy in Vietnam. It is also the one that George W. Bush faces
in Afghanistan. So far, his administration has bungled the
challenge. Despite Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's
claim that critics are looking for "instant gratification," the war
effort is in deep trouble. The United States is not headed into a
quagmire; it's already in one. The U.S. is not losing the first round
against the Taliban; it has already lost it. Soon, a new credibility
gap will emerge as the Pentagon attempts to massage the news.
ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, The Independent, 11/2/01:
In Vietnam the U.S. dropped more explosives than in the Second
World War but still couldn't stop the Viet Cong. . . . Meanwhile
the popular expectation of a knockout blow against the Taliban
has been cruelly disappointed. Remember the optimistic remarks
a couple of weeks back about the way American bombs were
eviscerating the enemy? This has given way to sombre comment
about the Taliban's dogged resistance. Evidently our leaders gambled
on the supposition that the unpopularity of the regime would bring
about the Taliban's rapid collapse. And they also seem to have
assumed that it would not be too difficult to put together a
post-Taliban government. This was a series of misjudgments. . . .
Vietnam should have reminded our generals that bombing has only
a limited impact on decentralized, underdeveloped, rural societies
. . . . All of this raises questions about the competence of our
national leadership.
R.W. APPLE, The New York Times, 10/31/01:
Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous
word "quagmire" has begun to haunt conversations among
government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and
abroad. . . .Today, for example, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
disclosed for the first time that American military forces are operating
in Northern Afghanistan, providing liaison to "a limited number of the
various opposition elements." Their role sounds suspiciously like that
of the advisers sent to Vietnam in the early 1960s.
COKIE ROBERTS, ABC NEWS, 10/28/01 (to Donald Rumsfeld): "The
perception is that this war the last three weeks is not going very
well."
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, CNN LATE EDITION, 10/28/01: "We're going
to have to put troops on the ground. We're going to have to put them
in force. It's going to take a very big effort. It won't be accomplished
through air power alone."
MAUREEN DOWD, The New York Times, 10/28/01:
As Rudyard Kipling's Kim reports back to his British spymasters, from
the mountainous moonscape of Afghanistan, "Certain things are not
known to those who eat with forks."
President Bush has been lured through the high-altitude maze to the
minotaur's lair, or as it's known in the novel "Flashman," "the
catastrophe of Afghanistan." Now, like the British and Russians before
him, he is facing the most brutish, corrupt, wily and patient warriors
in
the world, nicknamed dukhi, or ghosts, by flayed Russian soldiers who
saw them melt away.
SEN. JOE BIDEN: Los Angeles Times (news story), 10/26/01:
On Tuesday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen.
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-Del.) warned that unless the air attacks end
"sooner rather than later," the U.S. risks appearing to be a
"high-tech bully. Every moment it goes on, it makes the aftermath
problems more severe," he said.
DANIEL SCHORR, NPR, 10/27/01: "Well, I don't know how long
this was supposed to take, but it's certainly going a lot worse than was
expected. . . . This is a war in trouble."
Fools then and Fools now. You enjoy distingushed company.
Dave Gower
"JCarew" <oth...@prodigy.net> quoted (being too lazy to compose his own
text)...
>
> Report: Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
> repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially
> more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq,
> New Yorker Magazine reported.
The New Yorker Magazine is out of its depth talking about anything more
complex than theatre reviews. Few reporters (and obviously not this one)
understand that military planning always involves examining a wide variety
of scenarios, with participants encouraged to explore all possible dangers
and choices. Force size and composition is certainly one of the variables
discussed but there are many more.
Tommy Franks gave a perfectly reasonable explanation for moving when they
did, rather than wait for the arrival of the 4th and 101st Divisions. They
wanted to prevent the destruction of the southern oil fields. We now know
that this was a very wise move, since demolition charges were being rigged.
Given the fact (known before the invasion started) that the regular Iraqi
forces would not fight, and that the Republican Guard was around Baghdad,
the strategy of starting small was a quite viable one.
The war is going so well that the press has to fabricate issues out of
nothing. Pathetic.