Posted on 10/16/2002 7:17:42 AM PDT by OldCorps
Now what do we do in Iraq?
October 14, 2002
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Now that Congress has droned through a week of largely desultory debate to authorize the use of force against Iraq, how will it be exercised? That is properly a military secret, unknown even to members of Congress. More questionable, it is also unknown to senior military officers.
If there is a precise plan for action to remove Saddam Hussein from power, general officers at the Pentagon tell members of Congress that they are in the dark. This may be another example of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld working with a small circle of both official and unofficial advisers, fostering concern among career officers that plans are not being sufficiently reviewed by military experts.
Hawkish civilians, in and out of the government, have been suggesting that Saddam's elite Republican Guard will throw up its arms in surrender. No serious person believes that. The question is whether an uprising of the persecuted Shia majority will be enough to overthrow the Baghdad regime without heavy application of U.S. force. If there is no effective revolt, the generals and their friends on Capitol Hill worry that the unknown plans may not call for sufficient U.S. forces.
The concern goes to the executive style of Rumsfeld, who recalls the abrasive qualities demonstrated by war secretaries in the mold of Edwin Stanton during the Civil War. To his credit, Rumsfeld has attempted to toughen up the officer corps, softened by standards of political correctness during the eight Clinton years. However, the officers who thought that happy days were here again on the day that George W. Bush became president have been disappointed.
Their disappointment stems from Rumsfeld's inclination, born of a turbulent lifetime in governmental and corporate affairs, to make decisions within a restricted circle. That includes war planning. According to Pentagon sources, the secretary does not consult the uniformed service chiefs. Participating in the immediate planning are Gen. Tommy Franks, commander in chief of the Central Command, and a few officers from the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
What most bothers the generals, however, is Rumsfeld's preference for outside advice. For example, sources say a frequent consultant with the secretary is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an amateur military expert and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. There is no distribution through the Pentagon of such advice.
Generally, this advice probably follows the longtime line by Richard Perle, the Policy Board's chairman, that indigenous Shia forces will do most of the fighting to dislodge Saddam. That leads to the internal debate over whether 250,000 U.S. troops are needed for combat in Iraq or, instead, a much smaller number will do.
The professional military thinks that Saddam's Republican Guard will fight, and that substantial U.S. forces will be needed. Contrary to a widespread popular impression, these elite troops did not surrender at the first sign of American troops in 1991. Saddam, displaying his instinct for survival, had brought his Guard back to Baghdad and placed untrained Shia recruits on the front line in the desert.
One Republican Guard unit, the Hammurabi tank division, was trying to get to Baghdad when it was mowed down by the U.S. 24th Division at the Rumaila oil field in the Gulf War's famous ''turkey shoot.'' Saddam decided not to risk his elite units in a hopeless military situation when he figured, correctly, that his regime could survive. His options figure to be different this time.
Officers at the Pentagon cut off from the secretary of defense worry about the Republican Guard conducting a last-ditch defense of Baghdad, using civilians as shields. They ask: What are U.S. plans for conducting this kind of warfare, which would inflict a high casualty rate on both sides?
I asked a senior, well-informed Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who is a strong supporter of President Bush, whether the U.S. military was preparing for war with Iraq with sufficient force to cover all possibilities. ''They better have,'' he replied. When I rephrased the question, he gave exactly the same answer. He does not know, and neither do some gentlemen with four stars on their shoulders.
1. Although he is a vast improvement over his predecessor, SecDef Rumsfeld worries me because he gives the impression that he is the only one running the show and that he will not listen to others. Take a look at his press conferences: cute remarks and inside the beltway jokes with the press corps do not inspire a lot of confidence in him from those who are thousands of miles away risking their lives. Notice how he expects his subordinates to tow the party line: look at the USMC 4 star (vice chairman, JCS) and his propaganda minister-(the, ahem, tall assertive woman-don't know her name) all they do is restate the latest revealed wisdom from Rumsfeld. Not any original thought.
2. Personalities aside, it causes great concern that well connected and serious journalists like Mr. Novak are writing that Secretary Rumsfeld is ignoring the advice of the Army chief of Staff. General Shinseki may have made a political error concerning the beret debacle, but he certainly knows how to fight. He is highly regarded within the Army for his operational and strategic expertise.
3. Some of you might recall that the 10th Mountain Division was involved in a battle high in the mountains of Afghanistan without artillery support. Any officer above the rank of lieutenant knows that you don't go into battle unless you have artillery support, especially when the time and place of the battle are of your choosing. Yes there was a lot of finger pointing and excuses, but the fact remains that very unsound professional decisions were made in this instance. How far this goes up the chain of command I don't know. However, it shows that mistakes are made that result in needless casulties.
I urge Secretary Rumsfeld to listen to the advice of his senior Army officers in planing the campaign in Iraq. When all is said and done, it will be Army ground forces that will have to fight the Republican Guard, go in and secure Bagdad and provide security for the new regime, etc. Undertaking such an operation requires army expertise, not civilian book learing or political insight. The absence of such expertise can only lead to unfortunate circumstances for our soldiers.
Novak is known for working both sides of the aisles and, as you surely know, the reputations of various senior officers within the service community are often mixed. What we may be seeing is Rumsfeld avoiding working through senior officers he believes (based on advice, but from whom??? Powell??) are too tainted with the Clinton administration -- and we both know that after 8 years of Clinton, there are a whole lot of 0-6s, 0-7s and 0-8s who have ascended to their lofty positions by hewing to the Clinton/Cohen party line, not to mention that almost none of the current 0-9s and 0-10s wore stars before the Clinton wrecking crew went to work. How many of the current commanders have seen combat? In the Gulf? Probably none of them have seen any sustained combat above the company level, and that would have been in the later stages of Vietnam. All but one of my Brother Rats is out by now.
I agree that it is still a matter of concern, and I would be a lot more comfortable if someone like Schwartzkopf were in an active command role or overseeing the planning.
The confidence of the zoomies has always been fun to watch, but I've never seen them win a war yet (Bosnia notwithstanding).
The more interesting question, which I have not seen anywhere addressed, is what sort of model for post-invasion presence is really appropriate. What I suspect (without any special knowledge) is that people are looking much harder at colonial-era models than anyone is willing to admit publically. Consider that the disparities in capablity between western (esp. US) and non-western forces is now greater than at any time in the past, even the 19th century, when relatively small European forces conquered and held vast areas in Africa and Asia. Perhaps the putative pashas of the pentagon think a couple of regiments of lancers -- oops, I mean a couple of armored cavalry brigades -- combined with the threat of massive air power would suffice. They may even be right that after a thorough thrashing of Saddam's conventional forces and his various special and republican guard forces, and the ensuing necessary bloodbath of Baath supporters, we won't need a huge garrison. But, the risk if they're wrong given our current force structure makes me uncomfortable.
Especially, in view of the information out of Korea last night about the North Koreans having nukes.
On reflection, the analogy that comes to mind is Goering's persuading Hitler in 1940 that the Luftwaffe alone could destroy the British pocket at Dunkirk and prevent its evacuation to Britian by sea. Ominous.
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