That's another quality reply, with lots of good information and thought.
I don’t know much about Zenni until an hour ago when I began reading. It looks like he was worthless. But I hear that he predicted that Iraq could be taken with actual force levels but it would take more to keep it secure. At least that was right. Maybe the administration plans he maintained were worthless after the battle reshaped everything. Good point.
I remember the rapid reopening of Baghdad International and Umm Qasr, and how it directly impacted our forces and the Basra population. That was so critical to operational logistics and foundational to national reconstruction that it would have been absurd to overlook. But I don’t think that’s what Rumsfeld reportedly “forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing [in] a post-war Iraq”. I presume Scheid was referring to more subsequent security requirements. I took “post war” more to mean post war security for travel, contractors, government infrastructure etc…, but it’s not explicitly stated.
I think a ridiculous portion of our reconstruction budget had to be redirected to contractor security. State may have been responsible for predicting more international support that they failed to secure, leaving the coalition and DOD hanging, but Rumsfeld’s initial force follow-on plan presumably could have made the difference, and its trigger was never pulled.
There’s an optimum force level for any environment. Roughly, when security is adequate for our goals and bringing more brings diminishing returns, more is a burden. When we don’t have forces to counterambush IED emplacement (eventually somewhat successful) or to protect informants, police, ammo dumps, reconstruction etc… we’re way below optimum. I don’t think the fall of all that was “inevitable”. Yes, most of our casualties “didn’t involve shooting at all”, exactly because our absence enabled support for the insurgents’ more successful methods of attack.
I don’t know what’s meant by our “heavy military presence in Fallujah, Ramadi Sadr City etc… didn’t prevent problems”. We had none. We often rolled through in force and that’s all we could do. That’s what enabled the support and coordination of so many insurgents and foreign terrorists and rise of militia. We could inaugurate leaders, police chiefs and swear in hundreds of men, but we couldn’t protect them or their families. In weeks we’d either lose their loyalties or their lives, leaving areas free for IED construction and emplacement. Sorry about the “Monday morning quarterback squawking ”, but from what I’ve heard, Rumsfeld championed the staffing and planning parameters that restricted us to that, not State, and I don’t want it repeated.
It wasn’t until we refocused on defeating bad guys one city at a time and continuously defended local Iraqi forces and projects that we progressed in Anbar. It’s roughly what we’re now successfully doing in Baghdad. Granted, those ISFs were few and ineffective early, but with so few of us, they were more so.
Like Rumsfeld, I misunderestimated the insurgency during its delayed rise and after our initial successes. I initially wasn’t aware of how fragile our minimal presence was in hostile areas and how disengaged we were in order to avoid inflaming them, that we in effect began rebuilding before defeating the enemy.
Rumsfeld reportedly directed our initial Fallujah invasion and retreat, the latter in part because of our questionable ability to manage any countrywide insurrection with the forces we had. Sure, If any of that would have added to victory, few would be blaming Rumsfeld. Maybe he still is a genius, but his success is now mixed I agree that we can’t succeed by throwing risk takers to the wolves, but we also can’t succeed by rallying so fully around them that we don’t acknowledge their mistakes, much less learn from them.
BTW, I understand Franks draws some resentment for retiring immediately after invasion to go on the lecture circuit, being that removal of Saddam was always promoted as less than half the job.
I guess it would be useful to consider the logic behind a very forward looking SecDef "forbidding" military strategists from developing plans to secure post war Iraq. Remember, this is a SecDef who is fundamentally redesigning the structure of the Army to match the progressive and forward thinking Marine Corps concept of warfare. This is a man criticized for thinking too far ahead and neglecting the present. And now he is a man accused of "prohibiting" military planners from planning for the inevitable outcome of our invasion of Iraq?!?! There are entire corridors of the Pentagon dedicated to planning such things. The largest briefings I attended in Bahrain were dedicated to post-war reconstruction planning. They involved representatives from every nation fighting on our side in Iraq. They involved everything from trained dolphins to clear submerged mines to Eastern European special forces teams tasked to terminate local resistance cells who might slow down reconstruction efforts. The suggestion that Rumsfeld "prohibited" post-war planning is ridiculous.
"I took “post war” more to mean post war security for travel, contractors, government infrastructure etc…, but it’s not explicitly stated."
Bing West does a good job of explaining who had the ultimate responsibility for these types of operations. It was not the Department of Defense. The DoD was a support agency. Rumsfeld was not the authority in determining any of those requirements. Once again, a very select few retired generals and our MSM are rearranging a few puzzle pieces to create a phony picture.
"Rumsfeld’s initial force follow-on plan presumably could have made the difference, and its trigger was never pulled. "
Again, this was not Rumsfeld's call. It wouldn't have mattered if he'd wanted to commit our entire armed forces to Iraq...he did not have the authority to dictate post-war Iraq policy.
"When we don’t have forces to counterambush IED emplacement (eventually somewhat successful) or to protect informants, police, ammo dumps, reconstruction etc… we’re way below optimum."
I would argue that history has proven again and again that the solution to defeating a guerrilla force is not to increase the number of conventional forces dedicated to opposing the guerrillas. The French proved that in Vietnam. We confirmed it. The Soviets validated it yet again in Afghanistan and are currently proving they've learned nothing in Chechnya. All of Iraq is an ammo dump. Every house and mosque is a potential (or actual) bunker. IED's can be hidden in animal carcasses or placed in the trunks of taxi cabs. The foundation of insurgent operations is to blend into the countryside and not engage in a conventional manner. When an enemy uses ambulances and school yards as weapons of warfare, you need a solution other than a larger hammer to defeat him. And one of the reasons early efforts at building an Iraqi self-defense force were so ineffective is the Iraqis had no experienced NCO or officer leadership...both of which require time to develop. If Iraqi police needed US troop presence to survive, than they are nothing more than a phantom force to begin with, and more harmful than helpful. It has taken 3 years to develop an effective Iraqi NCO and officer corps...and not surprisingly, we are now turning over greater portions of Iraq to Iraqi forces...without increasing the numbers of our own troops. The flawed assumption is that the work in Iraq can be done quickly with little or no cost. That is a perception eagerly encouraged by the MSM and democrats who conveniently overlook the fact that the infrastructure of Iraq was broken long before the first US troops crossed the Iraqi border, and the police and armed forces of Iraq were so ineffective that a relatively small number of US troops were able to break countless centuries old records in their push to topple Baghdad. The democrats want to know why Iraq isn't running like a finely tuned race car, when the country resembled a rusted out VW camper before we even got a chance to kick the tires.
"I don’t know what’s meant by our “heavy military presence in Fallujah, Ramadi Sadr City etc… didn’t prevent problems”. We had none."
That is a factually incorrect statement. We had a constant presence in all of those cities. Time and again terrorist forces attempted to overwhelm our forces in cities like Ramadi, Samarah, Mosel and Sadr City. Only in Fallujah did we withdraw our forces and even then, we almost certainly had the capability to overwhelm the guerrilla forces hiding in the city.
"from what I’ve heard, Rumsfeld championed the staffing and planning parameters that restricted us to that, not State, and I don’t want it repeated."
In all honesty, what you've heard is simply not correct. Reading Bing West's book will give you better insight into what was really going on. Rumsfeld has been made the bogeyman for a lot of this and most of the darts are being thrown by people who simply do not know any better or have a clear agenda to make him (and Bush) look bad. The facts do no support the accusations. As an unrelated but similar example...compare the targeted sources of the Plame "leak" with the actual source of the Plame leak. There is an agenda behind much of the blame being tossed around, and for the most part the blame ignores reality.
"It wasn’t until we refocused on defeating bad guys one city at a time and continuously defended local Iraqi forces and projects that we progressed in Anbar."
We never had the luxury of defeating bad guys one city at a time. Even our operations in Fallujah were conducted concurrently with operations all over Anbar and the rest of Iraq.
"Rumsfeld reportedly directed our initial Fallujah invasion and retreat"
Again, this is just flat out BS. I'm not blaming you for drawing that conclusion. But I am telling you the conclusion is wrong. Again, I suggest reading Bing West's book. And don't get me wrong...Bing spreads the blame around and almost nobody escapes his spears. But Rumsfeld was not the man directing our Fallujah operations, and he certainly did not order any retreat.
"BTW, I understand Franks draws some resentment for retiring immediately after invasion to go on the lecture circuit, being that removal of Saddam was always promoted as less than half the job."
Anyone who suggests Franks had the authority to dictate either his role or the role of the military in post-war Iraq is an idiot. Plan and simple. Since when does an American military commander have the authority to dictate his own assignment? Furthermore, those same folks have zero concept of the dynamics of what was involved in post-war Iraq. They more closely resemble the mullet wearing "nuke Fallujah" brigade, than anyone who actually has a clue about the broader picture that exists in the Middle East.
Let me conclude by saying it is completely understandable that thoughtful and intelligent people might draw conclusions about our post-war operations in Iraq that are otherwise not supported by reality. As I stated previously, the same thing can be said about the Plame affair. There is and has been a very clear agenda to manipulate the reality of our operations in Iraq since months before we even stepped across the line. So much BS has been tossed around that it takes a front end loader to shovel off the $hit from the true picture. It is a real shame, because as you have implied, the most important effort after any combat operation is to accurately identify the errors made and ensure they aren't made again. As with any and every combat evolution, there have been plenty of errors made in Iraq. But viewing them through a filter designed to make certain individuals or the Bush administration look bad does nothing toward insuring those same mistakes are not made again. And that is going to cost good American's their lives in the future. But it should be clear that besides the actual terrorists themselves there is one entity that has almost no regard for the lives of Americans, and that is our media. And until the DoD can figure out a means of ensuring the truth is able to overwhelm the media created fiction, we are doomed to ignore many real mistakes in pursuit of prosecuting phony ones. And that is one mistake we haven't fixed since Vietnam.