I believe Romney was heavy influenced by the likes of Wolfowitz (supposedly the expert) that were convinced of widespread support of the US invasion by the Iraqi populace. There are many reasons to believe such, and in fact it may have gone a lot better had we not made some crucial mistakes like dis-banding the Iraqi armed forces, intel service etc. early on (Paul Bremmer).
Romney said it best with his statement that you go to war with the Army you have, not wish you had. The DoD had gone through an era of post Cold War draw down under Clinton. Defense spending was at its lowest since WWII (as a percentage of GDP) with the Army down to 475,000 active duty personnel (smallest since WWII), a ready reserve that only exists on paper, units not deployable, etc. When we went into Iraq we went to war with an Army that simply didn’t have the size to maintain the required personnel footprint required for a sustained operation of that magnitude. Dreams of 300,000 troops in Iraq in order to meet the “troop to task” requirements such as General Shinseki briefed to Congress were mere political games because it wasn’t realistic. But of course Shinseki was rewarded for his loyalty with a position as the head of the VA once Obama took office.
The maximum we could put in theater was about 130,000 - 140,000 sustained because you also have other missions such as in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Sinai, Korea, etc. One needs to realize that in order to sustain troops in a theater long term, you can only deploy about 1/3 of the troops since one unit is recovering from a deployment, while another is preparing to deploy, and the third is deployed. Trying to push harder than that “burns out your force.” It’s not a lack of “knowing better,” it’s just a lack of capacity.
***Romney led the DoD through one of the hardest times in history as far as defense/national security is concerned.***
1. Inheriting a depleted armed forces after years of personnel and budget cuts 1990 - 2000.
2. A DoD that was still structured, equipped and trained for a Soviet/Warsaw Pact threat and not all ready for what it was facing in what was to become a massive guerilla war.
3. 9-11 and the call for “immediate” action, giving him no time to prepare unlike WWII where we knew we would eventually go to war and were getting ready...
***When we went into Iraq, regardless of what was officially given as a reason or in the MSM, part of the idea was to “take the fight to the enemy.”*** The idea is if you plant a US flag right next to the shrines in Karbala where Mohammed’s grandsons are buried, you’re creating a giant shit magnet that will attract the bad guys to fight you there, and that it did!!! The rest is a reciprocal argument, i.e. no AQ in Iraq as the MSM pointed out. Who cares, once we went there, shitheads from Chechnya, Sudan, even from Europe and North America went there to fight us. But in Iraq we could execute this battle using the full force of our intel and DoD, not impeded by Constitutional rights of citizens etc. Would you rather fight this war in the streets of New York or Baghdad?
We didn’t have a 100% accurate read, and that is never the case. But post 9-11 we had a poor read because even your national intel assets had experienced massive budget cuts and a decline, withdrawing from places like Afghanistan post 1989. Romney didn’t have the benefit of the best intel read.
Romney was handed a shit sandwich. He handled it extremely well. This nation can be thankful we had him! He did the best possible given what he had to work with and I hardly doubt we can even imagine anyone doing a better job, without 20-20 hindsight.
Romney???