Rumsfeld is McNamara - (Rummy fans aren't going to like this one, but Bowden has a point!)

MENS NEWS DAILY.COM ^ | MAY 16, 2005 | JAMES ATTICUS BOWDEN

[Justa]

I generally agree with the article and all your posts on the thread. Rumsfeld stiffed the ground troops on the Iraq invasion and occupation, believing airpower and Special Ops could defeat and occupy Iraq. A entire nation cannot transform itself from a military dictatorship to democracy overnight, especially when the former leadership was forcefully removed and remains in hiding with assistance from neighboring countries.

The Germans were under the control the Nazis for 10 years; the Iraqis were under the control of the Ba'athists for 30 years.

If the US had to keep hundreds of thousands of troops in Germany and Japan several years after the war what history was Rumsfeld referencing when he approved 150,000 for the war and 30,000 for the occupation?

[Wolverine]

Shinseki, was a disaster.

 

He bought (and initially wasted $30,000,000 on the first 'MONICA' purchase from China) and forced everyone to wear the 'MONICA BERET.'

[Political Junkie Too]

Rummy's stock then plummeted 18 months later, and by June of 2003 when the insurgency got under way in Iraq, he was excoriated and called a variety of unflattering names.........but then, so was President Bush.

What people dare not say is, (IMO) it was Powell who should be blamed for the insurgency, not Rumsfeld. It was Powell's job to get Turkey to allow us to base an attack from the north AND south. By losing Turkey in the final weeks leading up to the war by just a few votes, we allowed the Iraqi military to melt into the north as our troops rushed up from the south. Can you imagine what the war would have been like if we had two fronts closing in on Baghdad to entrap the Iraqis?

-PJ

[jatticus]

I didn't say you would keep Saddam propped up. Or keep the old Army in charge. The old Army would be supervised and under control, not freelancing with an insurgency. The Occupation would still take years.

[jatticus]

Actually the Marines whine the most - your observation about them doing most of the work in Iraq is classic. They are great at politics. I take it you are a former Marine. I enjoyed my year at your Marine Command and Staff College. Learned a lot about the second land Army.

[q_an_a]

professors and politicians make a living creating topics about the Lint on a famous person's coat - because so many other facts have already been made. This is why people still write books about Lincoln or Shakespeare. This is one such article. YOU MAKE A GREAT POINT!! If the order was to evaporate into the population and fight as guerrillas, how could you keep them?

[jatticus]

The other services used the same lift (air and sea) as the Army -except a few amphib ships that did not carry all the Marine stuff. Rummy tinkered with the Centcom TPFDL to move other services first. Nice cheapshot, but wrong.

[jatticus]

Thanks PZldr. I agree.

[mikegi]

I think the Iraq war went bad when we didn't find stockpiles of WMD. That totally defanged Bush/Rumsfeld and from then on they wanted a way out.

However, I think the impression given that Rumsfeld was a "rock star" is just remembering only the good things. Back in the Afghanistan attack, the MSM constantly brought up Vietnam, the Soviets, and "quagmire". Remember?

Iraq was a gamble and we don't yet know if it will pay off. If a strong democracy emerged, it would be revolutionary.

[axes_of_weezles]

"The other services used the same lift (air and sea) as the Army -except a few amphib ships that did not carry all the Marine stuff. Rummy tinkered with the Centcom TPFDL to move other services first. Nice cheapshot, but wrong."

I highly doubt he personally messed with TPFDL. You did not answer post #20. Maybe a staff officer.
What was in the ARMY's WRM from '90-91 back to '78 in the AOR? Anything useable? Was it being maintained? The Army had all the time from '91 on to stock up and get ready. It had almost 2 years post 9/11. Army senior leadership needs to buy a clue. This is 2005 not 1945.

Who messed with the TPFDL for Kosovo? It was WUs Clark the EU commander who bogged the airlift down moving Helicopters and munitions to Albania, that's who. How long did it take to get the Apaches to Kosovo for the big push there?
Months, not days. You can't airlift 100 ton M1 tanks with C5's and C17's in mass quantities. You have to sealift and preposition. That takes months. If you do you preempt all the other missions by using the Airlift.

The Army's lack of equipment and readiness was brought on solely by the lack of foresight of it's internal branch's senior leadership. There was a blank checkbook for them post 9/11. So you cant say they were underfunded.

[Cicero]

Yes, that's the one. He of the Monica Beret, as Wolverine notes. He was best known for the beret, which seems to have been a deliberate attempt to trivialize Special Forces and reward clinton's Chinese donors, but as far as I can make out there was nothing else positive to be said about him.

[Horn_Dude]

"Thanks for your ideas, Horn Dude! (what a name!)"

FYI. I am a Texas Longhorn fan and I'm a dude.

[avg_freeper]

Well at least y'all have found a complainer to post here now that Hackworth has passed.

I'm surprised it took this long.

[CHARLITE]

"I am a Texas Longhorn fan and I'm a dude.",br>

Okie dokie! More power to you down there in Texas!

Thanks for the explanation. Sounds better now!

Char :)

[cynicom]

Comparing Rummy in any fashion to spineless McNamara smells of sour grapes.

Rummy made mistakes, you better believe. McNamara never did anything right, that you better believe.

The author appears with a rather thin presentation, one that seems to smite Rummy more than the spineless one. Perhaps the author is another disgruntled officer that could not make it.

[CHARLITE]

Here is James's bio, which I took from chronwatch.com.

About the Writer: James Atticus Bowden has specialized in inter-disciplinary long range "futures" studies for over a decade. Employed by a Defense Department contractor, he is a retired United States Army Infantry Officer, and a 1972 graduate of the United States Military Academy. He earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and holds three elected Republican Party offices in Virginia. Contact at jatticus@aol.com.

[BlueDragon]

you state;

"...was the betrayal by our ally Turkey, which no one could reasonably have expected.

Turkey did not "betray" the U.S.
It was a major miscalculation on Rummy's part, if he thought the Turks would go along with the idea.

Hell, I could have told you that the Turks's wouldn't be able to afford, politically, an entire U.S., heavy armoured division,
with scores of tanks, hundreds of vehicles, and ten thousand+ U.S. soldiers
to transit their nation, on the way to attack a neighboring Islamic nation.

Any idea to the contray, is just flat-out IGNORANT!
(and yes, I'm freely insulting scores of freepers, and the pentagon brass, too. bronx cheers loudly offered to you all...)

[Cicero]

I used the word "betray" advisedly. The Generals did not just refuse to let us through. First they held out for a large aid payment. Then they pretended that someone in parliament had acted unexpectedly. Then they dragged things out, while the whole division sat on ships offshore. Then after the war started, they finally said "no." As a result that whole division had to come all the way around to the gulf and was more than a week getting to the fighting.

They could have just refused from the start. Or they could have secretly advised Bush that they couldn't afford to do it. Instead, they made things just as bad as they could by their behavior. My personal theory is that Chirac got to them and bribed them with an offer to get them into the EU if they helped him out. No way to know that, of course, but their behavior couldn't have been more damaging.

[BlueDragon]

Ok, I stand somewhat corrected.
At the time, it did seem painfully obvious to me that Turkey would not allow it---their gamesmanship, stringing us along, I overlooked. Perhaps since I didn't in the slightest believe that the 4th would be allowed to land, regardless of the rosy optimism the (U.S) Administration seemed to hold for the plan.

Wether it was a concerted effort on the Turk's part, or more a relection of some real disagreement (which Turk political lever-pullers worked at, to attempt to take advantage of), I can only speculate. Perhaps what you offered here, is accurate. In regards to this entire deal--the fairly long-term troubles the Turk's had been dealing with, in regards to those whom had been agitating for a portion of Turkey, to be a Northeast quadrant of "Kurdistan", loomed...

'Nothing really sweet & simple, about the whole bloody complicated mess.