Posted on 04/02/2006 9:38:54 PM PDT by Prost1
Hey, I've seen some predictions from several years before the invasion that turned out to be fairly accurate, but so what? Neither they nor anyone else had a silver bullet to make it work. So the complaints about "planning for the peace" still amount to hand-wringing that invasion never should have been attempted in the first place. And that goes back to what would be the consequences of Saddam still in power in 2006? Not good.
Every leftist said this before the war and there hasn't been anything close to the organized conflict they predicted. Much blame can be affixed to errors in filling the post-Saddam vacuum at a faster pace.
3 weeks to Baghdad not short enough for you?
Anyone who's studied Iraq, even for a quick seminar, should've seen lots of these problems coming.
And who says Rumsfeld "didn't see" them coming? Maybe he saw them coming all right but made the (correct) strategic decision to focus on potential problems he deemed to be orders of magnitude larger. As a result we've taken the hill, but we haven't trimmed the bushes on the way up, and so you're chastising Rummy after the fact for failing to "see coming" the fact that the bushes would grow.
The tribal and ethnic rivalries were simmering, and once the lid was off those old scores were bound to be settled.
I tend to agree with you, but now (in case you haven't noticed) your entire comment has become self-nullifying. If the old scores were "bound to be settled" then what difference would it make if Rummy, or anyone, saw them coming, and what sort of "planning" could have possibly made the whole thing better "handled", in your eyes?
I got the feeling going into the war that the Administration was spending almost all of its time thinking about how to win the combat, a little time selling the idea to the American people, and absolutely no time thinking about what life would be like after the combat phase.
That's called "prioritizing", and it's part of what they're supposed to do.
Should have have just assumed they'd win the combat phase, and spent all their time staring at electricity grids?
;-)
This isn't 'news'.
Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up'
May 21, 2004
he says senior officials at the Pentagon are guilty of dereliction of duty
http://tinyurl.com/r7mvt
In the book, Zinni writes: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."
Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the administration known as "the neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Let me just restate my point for emphasis: so you saw it coming, the real question is, so what?
What conclusion do you think follows from "foreseeing" the score-settling and sectarianism?
I believe I foresaw it just fine. But it didn't change my opinion about anything and if I had been in Rummy's position I don't see how "foreseeing" it would have me made do anything differently. What would it have made you do differently, I wonder? Do you know?
I don't remember anyone asking this jerk for 'his opinion'.
"I think he ran on a moderate ticket, and that's my leaning -- I'm kind of a Lugar-Hagel-Powell guy," he (Zinni) says, listing three Republicans associated with centrist foreign policy positions.
"In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never -- not once -- did it say, 'He (Saddam) has WMD.' "
Of course the administration saw this before they invaded. But they weren't so naive to say it in public.
With Muslim suicide bombers killing other Muslims, dysfunctional Muslim culture is exposed to the light of day. Muslims can no longer scapegoat the West for Islam's own self-inflicted chaos and poverty. In the meantime, a lot of Al Qaeda and other crazies are being killed.
Just be patient.
I think we all saw that including our leadership.
How heavy handed could we have been on the Ba'athists if we wanted to have the Sunni's cooperate? The Ba'athists have pushed the Sunni's to rebellion, easily playing on the occupation aspects. Again, come down hard on the Ba'athists. ( I mean killin' them like the Nazi werewolve groups) and totally alienate the Sunni's or play it close to the vest and out last the Ba'athist insurgency. Fallujia is a good example. We could have gone in hard that March and totally flattened the place or back off and try to be more surgical in our methods like we did later that year..
The Kurds for the most part have been playing by the rules. They could have pushed hard for independence but they mostly have not.
And even the Shia have tried to play by the template but pressure from Iranian influence and Al Queada attacks have been a strong temptation to retaliate against the Sunni.
Of course there were many variables in the post invasion planning and yes as it has turned out many solutions done on the fly. For instance, maybe the Brits could have done a better job of shutting their area of the border near Basra. Maybe the Brits could have played a little more hard a** on their Shia sector and riddled out the Iranian influences. Maybe the coalition should have engaged 300,000 troops instead of 150,000+. what if.. what if..
Bottom line is, I think we are in pretty good position today. The political process still exists. Al Queada in Iraq is severely damaged and the Sunni Ba'athists in my perspective are starting to run out of steam.
Are we still losing soldiers? Unfortunately so. Would we still be losing soldiers, if we had more boots at first, more plans to cutoff Iranian influence and Ba'athist rebellion, unfortunately I believe probably so.
To me the greatest tragedy of this campaign has been the unrelenting assault from the anti-war left and their media allies.
If this campaign was reported upon differently and a united front was seen from the American politic. Our enemies would be throughly demoralized and they would see little hope and therefore would be further vanquished than they are.
Hard to draw war plans up that also included the 24/7 4 month coverage of traitor Sheehan and her sycophant leftist media and political allies. People who have given aid and comfort to the enemy. People that have given our enemies the will to fight. Those are the people that have prolonged the campaign far more than any miscalculations by our commanders.
At 0745 ET:
Call-In
War in Iraq
C-SPAN, Washington Journal
Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
ID: 191879 - 2 - 04/03/2006 - 0:45 - No Sale
Zinni, Anthony C. Commander in Chief (1997-2000), U.S. Central Command
General Anthony Zinni (Ret.) talks about his book "The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose," published by Palgrave Macmillan. He was formerly the commander of the U.S. Central Command, 1997-2000, and talks about the war in Iraq. Topics include his opinion of the current U.S. policy towards Iraq, military strategy, and any future withdrawal of U.S. troops.
He must not have had TS access. No wonder Rummy shitcanned him.
He was responsible for all the contingency plans for Centcom.
Rummy probably had him retire.
Zinni retired in August of 2000.
He would be the general that failed to kill bin Laden, during Clinton's reign.
Also failed to retaliate for the ship Cole disaster.
General BIG NOTHING.
He must have "Planned" his retirement then.
I did enough tours in the AOR. If his warplans had been up to par, they would have taken them off the shelf and updated them.
We should have been in Iraq at the same time as Afghanistan.
Nice to see his plans were current.
And the bombings and deaths in Riyadh (Saudi Guard Bureau) and Dharan (USAF Barracks).
The State/Embassy bombings were also on his watch.
Maybe I'm destined for the short-bus here, but I really don't understand how effecting occupation of a country with a military the size of Iraq's and maintaining a 3+ year occupation with slightly more than 2,000 fatalities to date can be considered a 'failure'.
Can somebody please clue me in to where the supposed 'failure' is here?
More importantly, where was he when Clark bombed the Chinese Embassy?
Zinni gained my respect (and saved alot of our boys) by pouring water all over Gen. Downings (see Chalabi) plan of sending in a handful of SpecOps and dissidents. Zinni said it would be our "Bay of Goats."
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