2004 The General who got it right on Iraq.

[madfloridian]

The General Who Got It Right on Iraq

Rumsfeld and Shinseki clashed from the start.

Their philosophical clash became public when the United States went to war against Iraq. The preemptive attack relied on overwhelming air power and deployed a bare minimum of ground troops. Asked by a Senate committee to estimate the number of troops needed for the operation, Shinseki said "several hundred thousand." Rumsfeld's office immediately denounced the number as "wildly off the mark." But the disastrous experience in postwar Iraq has proved the general right: Security remains elusive because the numbers of U.S. and coalition forces on the ground are inadequate.

In a speech at Pomona College, he outlined his policy for a post-Cold War Army equipped to deal with a multitude of duties.

Here some some of his comments:

• Military occupation: "If your forces are in Baghdad, you own it. And that means you own the water, the electricity, the public buildings — and public order. If the task is to create a secure environment, troops on the ground are needed."

• Multilateralism: "Unilateralism as a stated policy is bad. The U.N. and this country have had our differences, but we need its cooperation and support."

• Threats and complicators: "In the Bush administration's first appraisal of defense needs, reference was made to 'asymmetric threats transcending geography.' Little was said about the kinds of 'complicators' that those of us who lived abroad in the 1990s were watching. These complicators — the best term we could find at the time — included transnational criminal organizations, international narco-trafficking, the surge in terrorist incidents involving Muslim extremists and the suspicion of ongoing proliferation of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology. The nagging question for which the Army had no answers was, 'What happens if the four complicators merge into a larger transnational threat? Whose responsibility will it be to deal with that kind of danger?' "

The author ends with " Some 20 months after the fall of Baghdad, Iraq remains in pieces, with anti-American fervor strong and our military victory tarnished by a stubborn insurgency and the needless brutalities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. If this is what Rumsfeld's idea of "transformation" has brought us, it's a pity we didn't try Shinseki's."

[Kath1]

1. One of the few voices of reason in the military at the time.

Bush wanted war. He wanted to be a "war president." Facts, tactics and consequences be damned. It is unbelievably tragic that that war based on lies resulted in so much pain, death, maiming and suffering.

[Enthusiast]

2. K&R! Did you ever see a more arrogant human being than Rumsfeld?

His job was to convince the American people of things that were not true. These were things that he knew were not true.

Rumsfeld paid no price for this deception. None of the Bush Administration paid a price for their deception. And it was clearly well planned organized deception. The US media has never adequately addressed the many lies of the Bush Administration. This has compromised the nation in a fundamental way.

Shinseki had the intestinal fortitude to challenge the Neo-Con misinformation machine. I don't think he understood who it was he was up against and how ruthless they were. He mistakenly thought a soldier's duty was.....................................................to do his duty.

[madfloridian]

3. Never.

He was the worst ever.

[War Horse]

4. The most scary line I remember from back then

was Rummy saying "we're doing this on the cheap". I was already pretty much sure this would be a disaster, but after hearing that...

[Enthusiast]

5. Yup. They tried to convince us it was being done on the cheap and now the bills are coming due.

Look at the cost to our veterans. And they allowed their cronies to pilfer the treasury through no-bid cost plus contracts in Iraq. Make no mistake, these fuckers are the worst kind of criminals.

[Octafish]

6. Integrity.

When a system is corrupt, those who have it become targets for those who don't.

[madfloridian]

7. Yes.

I have admired him for years. The good guys get run over.