Posted on 03/26/2003 8:08:17 PM PST by KQQL
The former supreme allied commander of Nato has accused US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of putting allied troops at risk through poor planning.
Wesley Clark said Mr Rumsfeld's insistence on a smaller invasion force had left troops vulnerable and the 300-mile oil supply line between Kuwait and Basra open to guerilla attack.
Troops had been tied up in "messy fighting" around Nasiriyah and Baghdad, he said, leading to "logistics problems".
He added that hopes of a quick victory spurred by a popular revolt against Saddam had been dashed.
"The simple fact is that the liberation didn't quite occur. They didn't rise up."
Other war veterans have also spoken out against the early stages of war planning.
Miscalculations
Ralph Peters, a military scientist and former Army officer, wrote in the Washington Post that a coalition victory would be achieved "despite serious strategic miscalculations by the office of the Defence Secretary".
The "shock and awe" strategy of aerial bombardment had failed to shatter the will of Saddam's regime, he said, and if anything had encouraged greater resistance.
"It delayed essential attacks on Iraq's military capabilities," said Mr Peters. "This encouraged at least some Iraqis in uniform to believe they had a chance to fight and win.
"Now our forces advancing on Baghdad face the possibility of more serious combat than would otherwise have been the case."
Coalition commander General Tommy Franks's draft invasion plan proposed using four or five heavy divisions moving slowly towards Baghdad.
New warfare
Mr Rumsfeld is said to have rejected this, complaining that it was too similar to the strategy used in the 1991 Gulf War. Instead he insisted on a smaller, lighter force relying heavily on special forces and air power.
Retired US Army General Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division 12 years ago, said Mr Rumsfeld had ignored warnings that he was underestimating the number of troops needed.
"I think he thought these were generals with feet planted in World War Two who didn't understand the new way of warfare," he said.
"If the Iraqis actually fight it's going to be brutal, dangerous work and we could take a couple to 3,000 casualties."
Mr Rumsfeld insisted his strategy was working.
"It's a good plan everybody agrees to, and it is a plan that in four and a half or five days has moved ground forces to within a short distance of Baghdad."
Bill Clinton and the individuals who served in his Administration are nothing short of a corrupt and traitorous disgrace. Bush was left with an economy and fraudulent dot-com stock orgy in freefall, a domestic and foreign intelligence infrastructure in malevolant neglect, a devestating betrayal of vital national security technology, property and intelligence to Chinese and Russian enemies, cynical corruption of our immigration controls, ill-intended last minute Executive Orders singularly designed to sabotauge, obstruct and marginalize the new POTUS. Clinton is a despicable traitor amd mobster. Nixon was a boy scout compared to this guy.
Bush is putting it back together, piece by piece, priority by priority in a cool, methodical and disciplined manner. It had to be the Pentagon, CIA and FBI first. Getting nominal control of a stolen Senate. Conducting a war against terror and its sponsors. Fortifying the security of our homeland. Loudly proclaiming our soverign, American prerogative and negating the slide into a global cesspool the Clinton scum embraced.
Bush has better people around him than did Reagan. They are a team with clear objectives and open input. Bush is a more effective manager of his people and processes than was Reagan. W is better for our security and prospects at this juncture than Reagan would have been. He's more focused, disciplined and decisive. And, unlike his father ... he's taking names now and if he survives the next election, payback WILL be a bitch to those who have taken advantage of his commitment to be apolitical and non-confrontational domestically in a time of war and national peril.
He's the right guy at the right time, as were Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. We are historically lucky the voters of south Florida are dumb as dirt. Gore would stil be messing around with U.N. resolutions and blue beret rent-a-cops standing mindlessly in Kabul. And the terrorists would have hit us again.
I agreed with your synopsis to this point.
B2 bombs and cruise missiles have little effect against hit and run guerrillas.
That's why we will probbaly take Baghdad fairly soon only to be plagued by months of cleanup, nightly civilian body bags on ABC/CNN, and a looming PR battle for W.
BUMP
To make it my own, every time she used the phrase "Cosmic Karma from the Depths of Soul" I substituted the phrase "Explosive Smackdown from the Bowels of Hell."
The Army wanted to use it to launch promotional packages from local FM stations into the crowds at basketball games.
Seriously, if we had agents deep enough in Saddam's shadowy world to pinpoint where he and his boys were going to go beddy bye that first night, we've got the intel and people there to find and kill any lurking thugs.
Check. Awaiting further instructions.
Howlin's so partisan she makes Pillary Sodham Clipton look indecisive. It's said she's so partisan she once fell into the ocean and sharks cleared a path to avoid her. Fact is, her partisan blinders are on so tight, she doesn't know there's more to life than the itty-bitty circle she's been walking in for so long.
Please know that choosing to cross swords with Howlin is akin to warring with a child. Your advantage far outweighs one who would walk into battle absent the ability to lace her own shoes.
This is what happens when people believe that all U.S. military intelligence and area study began on Jan 20, 2001. Trust me on this, all the War Colleges, the Center for Strategic Studies and every other military think tank have been focused on this nut since the end of Desert Storm. We knew perfectly well what the climate was in the south and we also knew that Saddam had learned a couple of lessons from Desert Storm, Kosovo, Somalia etc. We also have an intelligence infrastructure in place that has cost you, me and the rest of U.S. tax payers untold billions of dollars to collect, analyze and report information of vital national security interest.
No, we knew and reported. However, what the receiver (or customer) hears and decides to do is a horse of an entirely different hue.
Only someone like slick willie could reverse the sane order of the world and make such a decision....without a wimper from his friends in the media.
Just fine to bomb the oil pipeline causing the same type of disaster saddam hussein caused when he lit the oil fires.
Just fine to cluster bomb civilians.
Just fine to bomb a railroad and kill innocents going to work.
Just fine to block the Danube so that no goods could flow downriver to all the areas who depended on the river for their supplies.
But then, it wasn't hip to protest that action cause their guy was in power.
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