I don't know who's responsible or why, but I beleive we don't have enough troops on the ground to pacify Iraq. That's pretty obvious- Iraq is not pacified and it's been over three years.
As for the actual invasion, we had plenty of troops, even without the ones who would have come in through Turkey, but were denied.
However, for people who demand more American troops on the ground, I ask, "Where will these Soldiers come from?" There aren't any today. We're tapped out.
We wanted to make up this shortfall of troops by quickly training up the Iraqi Security Forces, which are a combination of military and police. This program has been less than succesful. The police suck and are completely ineffectual. The military does okay when backed up by Americans, but seems too timid to fight by themselves.
Enough troops to win the war? Easily. Enough troops to win the peace? Not by a long shot.
While I agree with SecDef Rumsfeld's philosophy of training our troops to do more and be more efficient, I don't agree that the logical conclusion is to keep our military at the present level of troops. At a minimum, the USMC needs another fighting Division and the Army two or three, with all the necessary equipment.
Though I'm not a big fan of his, Colin Powell warned about the troop strength getting too low back in his 1994 Quadrennial plan, or whatever it's called. He was ignored.
I respectfully disagree. All the troops in the world couldn't stop terrorists from sneaking around and killing innocent civilians, or occasionally bombing a convoy.
In fact, you can make the argument that the more troops you spread around the countryside, the more they are vulnerable to sneaky enemies.
And what would be the use of more troops? We could change our policy to a more bloodthirsty one of killing more indiscriminately and widely, firing back without caring about collateral damage, massacring whole cities where there are higher levels of troublemaking. But it didn't work for the Russians in Chechnya.
When you have terrorists willing to kill random targets, there is really no way to prevent a certain number of deaths. Most of the deaths in Iraq are of that kind: random acts of cruelty and cowardice, which our press refuses to report properly.
Oh really? Three whole years? WOW, imagine that. Gee, with you running the show I'll bet the whole thing would be functioning like clockwork and all the troops would be home in bed.
Gee, you're soooooooo impressive.
Panties on the head does that you know.....what is happening in Iraq is a direct result of the Dems and the MSM....and I guess you too from your post....
Since you've taken it upon youself to disagree with the Generals assesment on the number of tropps needed, would you give us some credentials of your own?
What is your expertise, if I may be so humble to ask?