Give us money or our jobs back: ex-Saddam officers

Khaleej Times ^ | 5 November 2005

[bnelson44]

If I am not mistaken, Gen. Shinseki, wanted more boots on the ground for the initial liberation. He was wrong there, they were not needed, and would have only amounted to more casualties. However, had we taken his advice, we would have had more boots on the ground for the peace keeping afterwords. But that would have been by circumstance, not by design.

[RightWhale]

Your comments are good. Iraq can be succesful only if everyone is included.

[TexasTransplant]

>>>"I think that Gen. Shinseki had an idea"<<<

Can you prove that?

Oh yeah Berets for everyone! His only claim to fame, other than that he looked and sounded "Politically Correct"

Haven't we had this discussion before?

TT

[bnelson44]

In early 2003, The Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, told Congress that stabilizing Iraq after a war is won might require as many forces as deposing Saddam.

At the time Shinseki thought it would take several hundred thousand troops to depose Saddam. He was wrong on that point.

Wolfowitz thought it would take less.

Well, we used the same number of troops for stabilization as for deposing Saddam, and it wasn't enough. With our network centric force, it took many fewer troops to depose Saddam than Shinseki predicted.

[Zeroisanumber]

Oh yeah Berets for everyone! His only claim to fame, other than that he looked and sounded "Politically Correct"

Gen. Shinseki was also the driving force behind the creation of Stryker BCTs which have gotten some good reviews for their work in Iraq, and he pushed hard to integrate individual units into a unified C4I structure. Currently the Army is (rightly) taking the next logical step from BCTs to BoUAs, and much of the reorganization that's being done now would be impossible without Shinseki's work.

Is Shinseki as good an organizer as George Marshall? No. But he isn't as bad as Ambrose Burnside either.

[hermgem]

After we got into Iraq, there was a General Gardner who wanted to do exactly what we're trying to do now.
Recall how these former Hussein army people stood in line to get their promised pay, yes promised, and then got kicked and insulted by Bremer.
Gardner was originally in, his plan was to de- Husseinize the Iraqi Army and start with and from a solid internal defense base.
In between came Sec. of State Powell and his State Department who won out over Rumsfeld and Gen. Gardner.
State came in with this instant democracy scheme to be implemented along the lines of fancy thinking of Powell's State Department.
State, Bremer and then Powell had to disappear first to make room for a new and very difficult renewal out of Powell's, Bremer's, and State's, ashes.
P.S. Yes the same Powell who actively prevented us from going right trough to Baghdad in the first Gulf war using as an excuse that our allies would not be following the U.S. Army to Baghdad.

[fish hawk]

When the company goes bankrupt, there is no retirement or pensions.

[TexasTransplant]

>>>"But he isn't as bad as Ambrose Burnside either"<<<

Should we have to go back that far in History to find someone with a comparable record of accomplishments?

TT :^)

[Zeroisanumber]

Heh, I was trying to think of the best and worst American generals as far as organizational ability. I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on ol' Burnsie, if I had Halleck and Lincoln breathing down my neck I might not have dotted all of my i's and crossed all of my t's either.

[LibKill]

These criminals need hanging.

[TexasTransplant]

Punctuation is overrated anyway

[Richard Axtell]

Something to remember: Imagine if we had invaded from the Turkei front, from the north? We didn't, remember? The Iraqi army distintigrated as much as it was disbanded, and melted into the desert. Had we been able to catch it in the originally planned vise, things would have been quite different. But, Turkei decided not to let us invade Iraq through their territory, so, here we are.

[endthematrix]

War just ain't what it used to be...