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We’ve Danced This Dance Before (Quagmire alert)
SFTT.Org ^ | 2/14/05 | David Hackworth

Posted on 02/14/2005 5:09:45 PM PST by pissant

As with Vietnam, the Iraqi tar pit was oh-so-easy to sink into, but appears to be just as tough to exit.

This should be no big surprise! Most slugfests – from bar brawls to military misadventures like Vietnam and Iraq – take some clever moves to step away from once the swinging starts.

This is why most combat vets pick their fights carefully. They look at their scars, remember the madness and are always mindful of the fallout.

That’s not the case in Washington, where the White House and the Pentagon are run by civilians who have never sweated it out on a battlefield. Never before in our country’s history has an administration charged with defending our nation been so lacking in hands-on combat experience and therefore so ignorant about the art and science of war.

Now the increasingly flummoxed Bush team is stealing the page on Vietnamization from Nixon’s Exit Primer, coupled with the same deceitful tactics he used to get us out of the almost decade-long Vietnam quagmire: telling lies.

The Nixon gang kicked off its con in 1969 via a killer of a PR snow job to pacify an American public whose support for the war was exhausted. The guts of this spin show were: We have clobbered the enemy; the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) is main-event material and ready to take over the fighting; and we can bring our troops home. This propaganda was supported by ARVN combat-readiness reports systematically doctored by our brass to show that the units we were advising were good-to-go.

I was on the ground as an adviser to ARVN when the campaign launched, and I was completely floored. Even the elite outfits – Rangers, Special Forces, paratroopers – were not fully capable of defending their country when put to the test. And these gung-ho troops were ARVN’s finest. Average ARVN grunts down in the ordinary infantry divisions were so ineffective that they couldn’t have fought their way out of a day-care center without massive U.S. air support.

Meanwhile, U.S. units started redeploying. Two years after the last grunt climbed on the last silver “freedom bird” and headed home, ARVN folded like a wet noodle.

All that blood, sacrifice and billions of American taxpayer dollars went for naught because politicians hadn’t worked out the endgame before Round One. And then their solution-without-honor was to lie their way out of a no-win war.

Thirty-five years later, President Bush told the nation that Iraq had nine fully trained combat infantry battalions. Just as he was proclaiming the prowess of the Iraqi army, a major in the Iraqi Training Command told me that the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, when committed to their first battle, threw down their weapons and ran. “Not sure where the president is getting his info, but we have only one battalion that's good-to-go,” he said.

Inquiring minds want to know: Is our president still being fed bad skinny comparable to the intel incorrectly linking Saddam to 9/11 or claiming that Iraq was chockablock full of weapons of mass destruction?

More recently, Pentagon hype claimed 140,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops were set to go toe to toe against an estimated 15,000 insurgents. But when congressional pressure from both Republicans and Democrats lit fires around the feet of both SecDef Rummy’s deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, they were quick to admit that only 40,000 Iraqi soldiers were ready to meet the tiger. The rest, according to Myers, “were useful in less-taxing jobs ... in relatively stable southern Iraq.”

The hard truth is that it takes a good 10 years to build an army from the ground up. And the major emphasis must be placed not on numbers such as how many battalions have been fielded or how ready the recruits are, but rather on good, old-fashioned officer training. Until this happens and the corrupt Iraqi officer leadership – from gold bar to four stars – gets a good scrub, our troops are stuck in the tar.

Bush needs to set up a truth squad directly outside his Oval Office door quicksmart. Then, whenever the Pentagon plays fast and loose with the truth, the liars can be immediately rounded up and punished.

Because lying won’t get our troops out of Iraq without our national security taking a long-term hit that our country simply cannot afford.

Eilhys England contributed to this column.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: hackworth; hackworthless; quagmireparrot
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Guess 'ol Hack will be screaming "quagmire" even when the build the sttue of GWB in Downtown Baghdad.
1 posted on 02/14/2005 5:09:47 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant
It's sad to see so many of these old farts stuck in the Vietnam tar pits.

Like a bunch of old fuddy duddies shaking their fists and cursing the kids rock and roll music, they are out of touch and out of their minds.

2 posted on 02/14/2005 5:13:07 PM PST by zarf
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To: pissant
"comparable to the intel incorrectly linking Saddam to 9/11 "

What in the hell is he talking about? Hasn't he learned yet that no one but the already-Kool-Aided buys this particular lie? Bush never made this claim.

3 posted on 02/14/2005 5:13:54 PM PST by Darkwolf377 ("Drowning someone...I wouldn't have a part in that."--Teddy K)
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To: pissant

Well, GWB may get a statue in Baghdad but Col. Hackworth for sure WON'T get one!!! I guess I'm just a dumb ninny but I cannot fathom how these guys keep up the illusion that Saddam was somehow linked to 9-11. I have not seen ANYTHING to support such an assertion.


4 posted on 02/14/2005 5:14:45 PM PST by GW and Twins Pawpaw (Sheepdog for Five [My grandkids are way more important than any lefty's feelings!])
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To: pissant

This is sad. There was a time I liked and respected Hack, even met him. Hack's ego trips him up everytime.


5 posted on 02/14/2005 5:15:15 PM PST by WarPaint (%^$# mecca. Be done with it. (Is this OK Admin?))
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To: pissant

"The hard truth is that it takes a good 10 years to build an army from the ground up"


Guess we didn't have an army in WWII, 'cause we certainly didn't have much of one in 1940 and WWII ended in 1945....


6 posted on 02/14/2005 5:15:16 PM PST by Enchante (Kerry's mere nuisances: Marine Barracks '83, WTC '93, Khobar Towers, Embassy Bombs '98, USS Cole!!!)
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To: pissant

Hackworth is so over.


7 posted on 02/14/2005 5:17:42 PM PST by MEG33 (GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES)
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To: WarPaint

I guess that's what happens when you start believing your own press. Pity.


8 posted on 02/14/2005 5:17:47 PM PST by Adrastus (I am locked and loaded with a clear field of fire.)
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To: pissant
CNN loves this guy.

I guess he must be wrong!!!

9 posted on 02/14/2005 5:18:09 PM PST by bubman
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To: Darkwolf377
Bush never made this claim.

That may be so, but I am pretty certain Cheney did, as have quite a few here on this forum, as recently as last night.

10 posted on 02/14/2005 5:19:55 PM PST by logician2u
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To: pissant

"Hack" seems like such an appropriate name for him.


11 posted on 02/14/2005 5:19:59 PM PST by Dilbert56
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To: logician2u
That may be so, but I am pretty certain Cheney did, as have quite a few here on this forum, as recently as last night.

Source?

12 posted on 02/14/2005 5:22:19 PM PST by BullDog108 (Forgive the Russians / Ignore the Germans / Punish the French)
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To: pissant
Vietnam was turned around and the Vietcong had lost most of their stuff in tet68 until they found an ace in the hole with Jane Fonda and turncoat Kerry!!
13 posted on 02/14/2005 5:26:17 PM PST by mountainlyons (alienated vet)
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To: pissant
Hack better take a look in the mirror, because it isn't just the government that's telling the same old stories. Iraq doesn't need a frontline army, it needs a professional security force to deal with indigenous malcontents and well-funded foreigners.

Iraq is not Vietnam. In Vietnam we had an enemy supported by Cold War superpowers who enjoyed both sanctuary and supply lines running through nominally neutral countries. One Vietnam lesson that we did learn was that it is a wise policy that sanctuary can only be offered to terrorists at the risk of the host nation's government. That is, actually, what Iraq was all about.

14 posted on 02/14/2005 5:30:34 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: pissant


Hack's a HACK!
15 posted on 02/14/2005 5:31:24 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: WarPaint

Lieutenant Colonel Hackworth is just bitter because, with all his medals, he was passed over for full colonel and retired without his eagle.

He apparently is somewhat unbalanced, having launched unprovoked attacks against fellow vets and national figures generally, venting personal spleen in the guise of his military expertise.


16 posted on 02/14/2005 5:34:14 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: pissant
Hack should change his website to:

STFU.org

17 posted on 02/14/2005 5:35:15 PM PST by DTogo (U.S. out of the U.N. & U.N out of the U.S.)
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To: DTogo
Hack should change his website to:

Thank you. As a mom I shouldn't say that but I sure was thinking it.

18 posted on 02/14/2005 5:38:17 PM PST by armymarinemom (My sons freed Iraqi and Afghanistan Honor Roll students.)
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To: BullDog108
What do you want, documentation?

I only expressed my recollection. I'm not a Google machine. GMAB.

19 posted on 02/14/2005 5:41:26 PM PST by logician2u
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To: hinckley buzzard
....Hackworth is just bitter because, with all his medals, he was passed over for full colonel and retired without his eagle.

We used to say these guys had been passed over so many times they had a stiff neck from the breeze.

20 posted on 02/14/2005 5:42:33 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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