Posted on 03/12/2006 11:00:01 PM PST by jmc1969
Iraq Resistance Lasting Longer Than Expected, Powell Concedes
Sunday 26 October 2003
DoD News: Defense Department Operational Update Briefing
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Q I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. Are you conceding that you didn't anticipate that the level of violence that's going on in Iraq now, the level of the insurgency, the fact that you're taking more casualties now than you were a year ago when you were still in major combat, are you conceding that you didn't anticipate that?
SEC. RUMSFELD: I am saying that if you had said to me a year ago, "describe the situation you'll be in today one year later," I don't know many people who would have described it -- I would not have -- described it the way it happens to be today.
WASHINGTON ? Hours after what he called a "brazen" attack on a Baghdad hotel, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded today that the Bush administration had not expected armed resistance in Iraq to continue as long as it has at so high a level.
But he denied that the administration, in its frequent emphasis on progress in Iraq, was trying to minimize the seriousness of problems there or to mislead the public.
"We did not expect it would be quite this intense this long," Mr. Powell said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." "We are still in a conflict, and I don't think the president ever sought to minimize that."
SEC. RUMSFELD: What I said, I thought reasonably clearly, was that if a year ago you had asked me to describe where you would be on April 15th, 2004 in Iraq, how might you have described it? And I answered by saying I would not have described it precisely the way we are now, and that is exactly how I answered it.
Bremer says US did not expect insurgency in Iraq
(Cross talk.) Q Is it better or worse? Q How would have you described it -- or how would you describe it? Q Did you mean you wouldn't expect it to be this bad, sir? Is that what you mean? Q We don't get what you mean. SEC. RUMSFELD: I certainly would not have estimated that we would have had the number of individuals lost in the -- that we have had lost in the last week
Which they would have had time to do, if we had farted around trying to police bypassed areas.
True, but one should always hope for the best and plan of the worst.The long and short of it was the neocons believed and planned (and fired generals the argued otherwise) that the Iraqs would not offer any resistance once Saddamn hold on Iraq was broken. They expected to be treated like liberators, (re: France WW2) were was no plan or planning for the resistance, there was no plan or planning for occupying a hostile Iraq. This kind of failure in planning is remarkable considering all the experience the USA has in occupying conquered nations.
But all that is water under the bridge, too late now, we in Iraq and we damn well better win no matter the cost. Things are going to heat up with Iran in the next year or two and we would be wise to massively increase the size of the US Army, we are in a war but we seem to think we do really have to fight the war! Someone with a brain better start thinking about what we need to do to be able to fight and win in the middle east.
"De-Islamifying" Iraq would have been like trying to "De-Nazify" Bavaria while leaving Germany and Austria next door undisturbed. I'm not sure we could have done more than we have along those lines without trying to subjugate the entire Middle East at once.
That was the Cubans.
Yes they resisted but not for long.
Of course that way they were able to come and go at the same time....
Wow! What a shocking discovery by the Times! Imagine Generals disagreeing on tactics! No wonder we're having trouble!
It's just a matter of time until they discover that Eisenhower and Montgomery disagreed. Which explains why Hitler's still in power and the Germans are running France.
Again, an assessment that only looks accurate with hindsight. US military had two tasks, task 1 (invade/topple) & task 2 (pacify/rebuild). They focused their efforts (understandably!) on task 1. They succeeded at task 1 very quickly, more quickly than anyone (anyone!) expected. As a result, task 2 looks like it has taken a long time, been a failure, not "planned" for well, etc etc., by comparison. Then people like you come along and say "look how long 2's taken compared to 1. Just goes to show, the military should have focused more on 2. 2 was harder". But that conclusion does not follow. 2 has taken longer; it does not follow that it was harder. Maybe 1 would have taken longer - far longer - if our military had taken a successful invasion for granted and started obsessing about rebuilding electricity grids while still on the road to Baghdad? You don't know & can't say otherwise.
And also, as you've acknowledged, much prewar planning was premised on the possibility of WMD use, and our military simply could not take for granted that they wouldn't be used. So criticism on that note is simply unwarranted (but I think you agree with that).
BTW, have you forgotten that one of the popular topics of conjecture back then was whether the Iraqis would surrender from just the shock & awe or whether we'd have to invade first?
Course not. Again, an indication that our military was quite focused on task 1. ("Shock and awe" was a supposed tactic/quasi-strategy concept for completing task 1 - with, admittedly, the hope that it would help with task 2.) Just so I'm clear, I don't disagree with you that our military focused on task 1, where I disagree is with the Monday-morning-quarterback criticism that it was "wrong" or a "mistake" for them to do so.
Task 1 was a big deal! Don't short-sell task 1.
More importantly, there's probably some dissonance between your comments and mine, that didn't occur to me until after I posted. There was a lot of talk back before the war about the prospect of urban warfare and how tough that would be. I was folding that in with the guerrilla tactics in general, as opposed to the military invasion, but that's certainly arguable.
Indeed. In fact, you cannot draw the line between them cleanly. I recall numerous articles pre-war and in the early days about how Saddam had a super-plan for the defense of Baghdad, involving "five rings" and turning it into "Baghdad-grad" and so on. Our military had to factor in such possibilities and respond (or not) to them as necessary. Was that part of "task 1" or "task 2"? Well, it never quite happened that way anyway, as it turns out. But if our military had been working on contingency plans, were they "wrong" to do so?
...but I do think that your analogy creates a far greater disparity between the two (the initial conquest versus securing the peace) than is valid. It is not like comparing surgery to acne.
Well, I *was* exaggerating the scale there, to make a point, of course! Just be glad I didn't haul out the "climbing Mount Everest vs. tying your shoelace" analogy that popped to my mind later ;-)
"Rummy's idea of lighter, faster, cheaper wars work to take down regimes, but they don't work to deal with the after affects of the war and it doesn't work to keep insurgencies from forming."
Yeah, but the theory helps deflect criticism of stopping or delaying massive spending on Star Wars Pt. II, B-2 bombers, and all the other "necessities" as determined by Rumsfeld in his pre-2000 lobbyist days.
Bush & Company's mistakes and errors are microscopic compared to FDR's. At least when measured by troops lives lost.
Well, I guess the best that can be said for next time America goes to war is those types of delusions won't be a factor."
This is dishonest. President Bush said over and over and over again that it would be "LONG........ AND........... DIFFICULT. " Stop making up your own "facts."
Hardly. You are saying the plan was to vote to ratify a constitution 4 months after the first day of the war? That is beserk. Besides, whatever plans existed were always contingent upon circumstances.
I see you're another victim of the amnesia epidemic. I hope you get well soon.
In April 2003 upon his arrival in Baghdad General Garner outlined the timetable for the Iraq transition, saying among other things that within 90 days they would rebuild the utilities, set up an interim government, draft and ratify a constitution, and hold elections. The sovereign Iraqi government was to then be in place by August 2003.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.