Failure of the generals

"Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America's generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public."

It's understandable that generals sought to placate him, ro Rumsefeld. But Eric Shineski did tell the Bush Adminsitration it needed a much larger force.

Eric Shineski was soon out of the Pentagon on his posterior.

W went in light, and didn't bother to allow a full fight or consider insurgency. Add in ridiculous ROE,and we've got a mess.

Enough. Bring'em home. Let Bush go back to Texas a shamed and broken man who never has another peacful night of sleep.

I agree with Bugg's post, but I must tell you...you are correct until you reference Bush in retirement. He will never see himself as a failed president, nor lose sleep. He SHOULD, of course, to your point. But he will forever be convinced that he walks with Jesus beside him, and he has done what he knew to be best.

At least when LBJ left office he knew he had taken the wrong advice and made tragic errors that cost the country and it's soldiers a fortune....and a generation. But LBJ was no fool...although he often appeared to be one. But Bush IS a fool, although, to far too many, he did not appear to be one. But by now most Americans haven't been fooled a long time. And many of the rest of us back here in Texas were never fooled at all. Promise.

Bugg, I agree with you completely. The only problem with your theory is that the Active Army is only a bit over 500,000 Soldiers. Not all Reserve units were rated ready for combat at that time, so I'm not sure how many we had on call. Suffice it to say that without heavy reliance on Reserve and Guard units, we can't even hack the force the level we have now.

I hope enough of these junior officers stick around long enough to become generals. Because we are bleeding Captains and Majors like crazy. Pretty much anyone left in the Army long enough will get Lietenant Colonel and a Battalion Command.

You guys (and Lt. Col. Yingling) are missing the key civilian leadership flaw in this whole thing. Which was to assign a mission to the military that it is not equipped and trained to execute - nation building. The primary military mission is to kill people and destroy things. When the Army and Marines engage in training exercises, they fire weapons and obliterate targets. They do not spend hours studying negotiation tactics with locals or how to provide essential community services.

This mess emanates from the Bush administration which has amplified the concept of military exceptionalism to new bounds. Only the military is competent to execute anything from its point of view. That mindset has marginalized the other governmental organizations, NGO’s and international community members who actually do nation building for a living. So rather than have a proper division of labor in the Iraqi reconstruction, we have the military forced to play good cop – bad cop with tragic consequences.

When we overthrew Saddam, we should have clearly mapped out a multi-layered reconstruction strategy that integrated all kinds of support players into Iraq. But we didn’t. And the non-military organizations that could have helped then won’t help now because of the deteriorated security situation.

But does the White House understand this? Of course not. And a couple of courses on non-combat population management at a War College do not make the sword of a military warrior into a ploughshare of a peace, love and understanding NGO professional. So the generals don’t get it either.

I can’t wait for this administration to be over. Because it already has been so over for so long.

"uniformed forces job is to kill people and break things until the enemy submits."

Agreed and exactly. Our fighting forces are the best in the world. They quickly and dramatically made quick work of the Iraqi regulars and found and deposed the bad guy in short order. But when the ROE are than you cannot fire upon a mosque when taking fire from it, and the enemy knows as much, we're screwed. When you allow Sadr to walk around and spew gibberish or don't obliterate Fallujah, the message you send is that you aren't serious. There's no way to fight a war halfway. Bush decided early on this would be a more "polite" war in Iraq, which is why we should never have gone to war unless we were ready to get bloody. The enemy was never humiliated nor destroyed.

Nation building in this situation is a perversity. It worked in WWII because we destroyed their countries and showed we could do much worse. In Japan we were able to coopt the Emperor. In Germany,we basically restarted Western ideals in a Western country. Both had homogenous populations.In both case we were dealing with societies that acted rationally.

Islamic societies are not rational; quite the opposite.

The nation building is now the work Iraqi men and women should be doing for themselves.And if they aren't going to do so or continue to allow their joke of a death cult "religion" to ruin their lives, it's no longer America's problem. Pack it up.

And sadly many of you are right-Bush is so self-unaware that he won't be affected for a moment.Friends who lost his brother in 9/11 at the WTC have since met Bush twice. He was cordial and polite and decent. But now I'm left to wonder if it's all just an act. When you add in the silliness of Dubai, Miers and "comprehensive"(was that word focu-group-tested to death? did he get a candy from Bar for pronouncing it correctly?) immigration, I find every day this man is office scary. Fault the generals, yes. But fault their boss.

The troops, privates to generals, have one overall mission. That is to carry our the orders given to them. If the orders are defective, the mission will be defective.

The military has the problem (or at least the current problem - at least since Viet Nam and Korea) of civilian control. The civilians should set the scope of the mission of the military and allow the military to carry it out. If the Generals don't perform within the parameters of the mission, they should be replaced, but only after they have been given clear instructions and support and have still failed.

Steve M. and Bug have a view which displays knowledge of the problem (others, too, but those seem most in point). Nation building was not considered as an objective as I remember when this started and I don't know when or how it became one. Nation building is a slow and complicated process which requires non-corrupt people who truly care for the people of the country as well as the sponsor country, so I'm not sure we had a basis to consider obtaining that objective.

The future military should be true military and not errand boys and scapegoats for civilian politicians and bureaucrats. Set the scope and parameters, adjust when necessary and get out of the way to let the military accomplish that which it is their responsibility to accomplish. I think we would have few of these discussions and swift conclusions to conflicts.

Rod,

You get it wrong with this;

"tell them that the military couldn't do what they wanted them to do, with the resources the administration wanted to commit to the mission"

The point is that the military is about destroying, not building up. I agree, we should have given the military the resources to suppress the insurgency, with overt, crushing violence if necessary.

But that said, that is their entire and only job. To kill and destroy selectively with minimal collateral damage. And make no mistake about Rod, that's what they are trained to do and they do it very effectively. Talk to Army or Marine grunts over a beer Rod and they’ll tell you about the mechanics of killing and how good they are at it. They won’t tell you how good they are at nation building BTW.

Inserting more military resources without integrating the policy into a larger plan of resolution means even greater carnage. And yeah, maybe there is something to be said for flexing American beer muscles from a primal perspective. I’d mow down Sadr too on a dime. But what comes after we pop the bad guys? Who cleans up the mess Rod? The military? Uh, uh, They destroy, they don’t build. We’re f-worded Rod there, f-worded.

You want nation building? Find an outfit that has part of that in their job description. It ain't guys that kill for a living.

SteveM

Our fighting forces are the best in the world.

Questionable--the army especially is stuck in a 2GW mindset.