We Did It To Ourselves
CNN tells us that General Shinseki was right and Rumsfeld was wrong: Army criticizes itself in Iraq invasion report
(CNN) — The U.S. Army’s official history of the Iraq war shows military chiefs made mistake after mistake in the early months of the conflict.
Failures to recognize the chaos engulfing the country and to send in enough troops to restore order after the 2003 invasion have long been highlighted by critics, but a new report shows the Army assessing itself.
Frank opinions from officers serving in the 18 months from the start of war to Iraqi elections in January 2005 reveal there were concerns at the time, not just about assumptions made by planners but at decisions taken once U.S.-led coalition forces had control of Iraq.
Understand that standard doctrine was all that General Shinseki was basing his opinion on, not some wild new concept. His estimate of 350K troops was what the manual called for in the situation, but Rumsfeld and the neocons wouldn’t listen and over 4000 dead later we are no closer to being able to get out.
4 comments
and to think that i was arguing with a blogofriend of mine just a coupla years ago over whether we needed 500,000 or 1,000,000 to do the job right. [the lower estimate was mine]
Anyone who has ever been in battle, and anyone with any real intelligence and understanding knew it was doomed to fail.
One thing drummed into any commander or any military person that undertakes OCS is that “Hope is not an approved course of action!” You can only win by superior planning, and by never underestimating the opponent. Neither of which happened in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and which the USA has a history of doing (which is what you get when you allow the Politicians control your wars). As in Vietnam and elsewhere, they were no plans for any contingencies. The only plan was “Step one, followed by Step two, followed by Step three…” etc. Unfortunately, the planners forgot to coordinate and choreograph the plan with the Iraqis, so they didn’t stick to the plan. A real plan involves contingencies and failures. Unfortunately, Rummy et al were unable to clone 100,000 copies of John Wayne or the Terminator, who always wins against great odds (at least, in Hollywood).
It was never going to be anything other than a dismal failure.
“When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
It was quite obvious when Shinseki was shoved aside that the idiots were in charge and that it would all come to no good. Rumsfeld should be in prison now.
As soon as the looting started, the operation was doomed. You can’t leave huge ammo dumps unguarded and not expect an insurgency. One disastrous decision after another, and the people who were responsible were given medals instead of jail cells.
Knowing that they couldn’t defeat the US forces on an open battlefield pretty much required the Iraqi forces to go to insurgency operations and the fact that no WMDs were used was a hell of good indicator that there weren’t any available, because they would have been the only hope to balance against US air power and armor.
US can win every battle, we just can’t win wars. The DoD was/is filled with people who think tactically, and damn few people who think strategically.
The wrong war, against the wrong enemy, with the wrong plan, executed by the wrong people … other than that everything was great.