Posted on 06/05/2008 10:44:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON — Both the top uniformed officer of the Air Force and its civilian leader have been asked to submit their resignations, FOX News confirms.
Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne will resign by the end of the day, two sets of sources tell FOX News.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“People were already canned over the Minot nuke problems...”
But then sent components of ICBMs to Taiwan, and didn’t know about it until the Taiwanese told them.
ARRRRRRRGH!
*
These guys just ‘pushed’ for the deals.
I know from personal experience that trying to blow the whistle on this kind of behavior from these guys will get you nowhere - fast.
We need the UCAVs AND the F22 to fight China.
Sheesh!
I would have probably agreed with you up until 6-8 months ago. The tipping point in part was due in part to the surge, but I would argue that the real change occurred when the Iraqi people decided for themselves that living under terrorist control was not a good thing and that supporting their government and the Americans was a better option.
Yes, we probably should have sent in more troops in the beginning but living daily under control of the various militia groups was what made Iraqis start selling out their captors to the the U.S. Once they saw that the U.S. could deal effectively with the militias, they joined us in defeating them.
First, it gave us a lot more manpower to draw from and spread out--something Shinseki said we needed from the beginning.
Second, it moved a large number of us off the big FOBs and into the mulhallahs in various combat outposts, joint security stations, and joint command centers, living (and fighting) among the people.
As much as I loved being told that I had to spend an extra three months in the worst parts of Baghdad, it looks like the extra assets and their redeployment into the hot zones paid off greatly.
Only then did the locals start getting off their lazy *ss*s and start working with us.
~giggle~
Thank you.
Many have argued that the Democrat/MSM propaganda about Iraq has served to "demoralize our troops and embolden the enemy". Which, of course, it has.
But nobody has honestly addressed the propaganda's impact on the Iraqi people. In a war where it is absolutely necessary to get the indigenous population on your side, the Democrats' constant cries for surrender and CNN's incessant (and dishonest) reporting of incipient disaster had to have an adverse impact on the Iraqis themselves.
That they decisively chose for freedom and alliance with America is a powerful comment on their character. And on the corruption of the left-wing media.
Wow. Just wow. That’s a mucho seriouso statement he made. And very needed.
I have a question that someone on this thread or the other related thread might be able to answer. When one receives a “Secret” or whatever higher clearance is given by the DOD, are there periodic reevaluations of that clearance? If there is a follow-up, how often? How thorough?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080605/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/air_force_shake_up
Gates ousts Air Force leaders in historic shake-up
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force’s top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups.
Gates announced at a news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne — a highly unusual double firing.
Gates said his decision was based mainly on the damning conclusions of an internal report on the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four Air Force electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads. And he linked the underlying causes of that slip-up to another startling incident: the flight last August of a B-52 bomber that was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
Gates also announced that "a substantial number" of Air Force general officers and colonels were identified in the Donald report as potentially subject to disciplinary measures that range from removal from command to letters of reprimand. He said he would direct the yet-to-be-named successors to Wynne and Moseley to evaluate those identified culprits and decide what disciplinary actions are warranted — "or whether they can be part of the solution" to the problems found by Donald.
We did so with far fewer than he suggested was needed. What we didn't do was to 1)attack from the north and grind up the northern nutballs, 2) significantly increase the size of the standing military to account for rotations, and 3) keep Iran out of it...which was largely a matter of poorly dealing with Democrats and the State Department.
Those that said we needed more troops in the initial invasion were shown quite clearly to be wrong...and we still aren't to their expected casualty levels.
Except that we added a few tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands he insisted upon...and the need from the beginning was for the Iraqis to decide to end it. Most else was positioning for that point.
For us to do it ourselves would have been far beyond the several hundred thousand suggested, and approach colonization levels (millions)...which would have been a different can of worms.
ping
Suppose this had anything to do with the tanker deal and the sorry sob?
BTW, It’s a shame SECNAV wasn’t shown the door with them.
I'll grant you that his numbers may have needed some work, but he was still right--we needed more people to get it done. Rumsfeld and GEN Franks disagreed. The invasion absolutely worked beautifully, but the human terrain was far more complex than Afghanistan, something that was obviously underestimated.
Would casualties have been a lot lower had we put 200,000-300,000 Soldiers/Marines into Iraq? I have no idea, but I'd be surprised if the overall pacification process had taken this long.
1)attack from the north and grind up the northern nutballs
We can thank our Turkish "friends" there; nothing we can do about that short of invading them, too
2) significantly increase the size of the standing military to account for rotations
Short of initiating a draft, this is a very long term solution, and for anything resembling a near-term solution, unworkable.
3) keep Iran out of it...which was largely a matter of poorly dealing with Democrats and the State Department.
Iran has much bigger allies than the Democrats or a useless State Dept. They have the 60%+ Shi'ite population in Iraq and a starved-for-attention Moqtada al Sadr and his personal army. We got so wrapped around the axle with AQI that the Mahdi Army practically got a pass by default. Now those b*st*rds are getting what they deserve. There's a special place in hell for every one of 'em.
Shinseki was off by a HUGE amount.
The most important part of the surge wasn’t numbers - it was the expression of commitment combined with much more effective tactics.
It also helped that A) the training of Iraqis had progressed, and B) people were tired of the extremists. Both of those were happening without the surge...
So we didn't need the extra troops?
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