[Cicero]

The one officer named as criticizing Rumsfeld, Shinseki, was a disaster. We are well rid of him.

The primary reason that so many Saddamite troops were able to melt back into the landscape was the betrayal by our ally Turkey, which no one could reasonably have expected. As a result, there was no northern front, and those are the troops who later turned up in the Sunni Triangle.

The writer also offers no alternatives to the way the war was fought. I just don't find this credible.

[PzLdr]

The C/S Rumsfeld ran out was right. You need troops on the ground to CONTROL the place after you take it. It amazes me how we took a couple of years to de-Nazify Germany, but a couple of days to de-Baathicize Iraq. Rumsfeld's failures are twofold: his hubris (check out the retired Gen. he brought back to be Army C/S), and his belief that one size warplan fits all. Sorry boys and girls, the Chinese aren't going to fall to some A-teams and the US Air Force. Rumsfeld has won his fight with the Army. But I wouldn't be too happy about the fact, or the victor, if I were you.

[Christian4Bush]

The one officer named as criticizing Rumsfeld, Shinseki, was a disaster. We are well rid of him.

You mean Gen. Shinseki, John Kerry's other wife? Lurch mentioned him in the campaign more often than he mentioned Nurse Fuzzy-Wuzzy"...

[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.'

[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...)