Posted on 04/12/2003 7:05:07 AM PDT by kalt
IMOH, one of the more important museums on the planet. Operative term now is was. :-(
Which oil field do you not want us to guard so we can guard the museum? Please understand that we do not have sufficient forces to do everything everyone would like us to do. The military planners did what they could. Unless you truly think that you can do a better job be careful with your criticism.
We will find out the mistakes we made at the end of the campaign. This is normal military operational requirements. However, I can tell you as a fact, that the amount of forces required to guard something is a lot more than the force required to destroy it.
As far as a divided focus there can be numerous objectives in the war plan without dividing the focus. The oil fields were secured after the enemy was destroyed. Luckily, most of them succumbed to our air attacks.
But, some had to be rooted out. If you think that we sent people in to cover every oil well before we destroyed the forces trying to destroy them than you are wrong.
The military planners at every level from brigade to the National Command Authority approved this plan. At every level soldiers could voice their concerns no matter what their rank. This is normal.
Therefore the plan did not have a divided focus, as it did in Mogadishu where the military told the President that the mission was divided and nonsupported.
The oil fields are Iraq's economy. The museum and other aspects of the culture are tremendously important but, when you have to make a decision with forces available you do so.
I'll grant you all of that. But I still don't understand why oil fields meet that litmus test, but one of the world's most important cultural repositories does not.
Take your pick! The left one! The right one! It's a false dichotomy, but if you must choose between them, choose the museum.
That's the $64,000 question.
The loss of lives, hands down. While I believe there bad people in each of those places you mention, I also believe that there are innocents who are as much a victim of their evil as the people of Iraq were victims of Saddam. The people of New York, the Pentagon, and in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001 were victims of this same brand of evil. And I would not have advocated shooting them out of the sky to save a museum either were there a chance a single one of them might have survived the crash. More to the point, I would not have advocated placing a platoon of soldiers in front of that same museum to stop a speeding bus from crashing the building.
The oil fields are being protected because they are the life blood of the Iraqi people. They will provide the revenue they will need to rebuild their country and crawl out from decades of poverty and repression. Having said all that, the article came from (The Sky is Falling) Reuters. There are other articles posted right here on FR indicating that Iraqi officials were in charge of that building and had been trained to remove those artifacts should war begin. I believe we will find that that is the case.
Well, military planning isn't really my expertise. But I'm still entitled to gripe when it's done badly. Not that I think this campaign was planned poorly. I don't. But this particular aspect of the planning is in need of criticism.
Its a shame they did not. Oil fields can be rebuilt.
Thank you for your kind words. I did not post to everyone but only attempted to answer questions or issues that were valid arguments. It seems that a lot of people have the freedom to say anything they choose without the education to back it up.
I do not mean the formal education in a classroom but the education of experience in the field. It's easy to criticize but few realize how important it is to those in the military to do the right thing for our country.
When others voice their right to criticize I hope they are not doing it just to hurt the young soldier who is scared, and in harms' way because that is what it does. I cannot believe that others do not understand this fact.
No one wants to die for issues that are not important to our country. But, there are only so many of us and these kids cannot do everything. No matter what we do there is always the fact that we might have been able to do more.
This is always discussed after a successful or unsuccessful military operation. These concerns seem simple. But to guard the museum might have meant a requirement to clear room by room entire blocks of the city. Or it could have meant an advanced special operation requirement to ensure the safety of those delicate artifacts.
Both of these issues as well as any other that would be attempted require a tremendous amount of planning and resources and the integration of this requirement and the resources necessary for its success.
This means that it is a lot more complicated than it seems on the surface. The reason we are successful is due to this meticulous planning.
How are they to know to guard that one thing? It's a big country.
Not likely. It's not their constitution, although they need something like the Bill of Rights in their's.
They need something carved into a pillar in the middle of town. This is the law, period.
Anyway, it's an articulate form of expression and so the object itself is not the paper, but the words, which can be memorized. This is not the case with art objects and other objects of undetermined use or origin.
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