Free Republic

An Army transformed, thanks to a retiring generalBy Joseph L. GallowayKnight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - If the Army isn't broken, then why is Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld so hell-bent on fixing it? From his first day in office Rumsfeld has fixed his sights on the Army - questioning its leadership, strategy and tactics, and its weaponry. He and his principal lieutenants, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Secretary Douglas Feith, seemingly found nothing right about America's senior service. They have postulated a world where a revolutionary new American way of war will command the battlefields of the future, and...

Op-Ed Column for Galloway Military Correspondent Is With KRT Joseph L. Galloway, senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder, is moving into opinion writing with a column Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service launched June 4. Galloway -- whose weekly feature will cover military and national-security matters -- is a Bronze Star winner who did four tours of duty in Vietnam as a United Press International reporter, covered the first Gulf War, and co-authored We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young (later made into a Mel Gibson movie).

U.S. strategy in Iraq prevails; special ops, superior air power were key to victory WASHINGTON - An old saw says that no war plan survives first contact with the enemy, but the central element of the American plan to defeat Iraq - quickly punching through to Baghdad - did. Gen. Tommy Franks, the coalition commander, fixed his sights on the Iraqi capital and never wavered. After initially proposing a much larger invasion force, he eventually relented to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and assumed considerable risk by launching a bold attack with a relatively small force of only...

WASHINGTON - As American Army and Marine columns battle to within 50 miles of Baghdad, the biggest challenge facing U.S.-led forces is how to take the Iraqi capital without a protracted, bloody battle. American planners have no intention, desire or any real capability to besiege an ancient Arab city of 5 million people, and no interest whatsoever in fighting for Baghdad block-by-block, house-by-house, as they think Saddam Hussein would prefer. Instead, American war planners foresee a swift, violent ground attack that will rely on accurate, up-to-the-minute intelligence from the very heart of the Iraqi regime. Relying on spies, electronic...