Re: US Army War College Study: What Went Wrong in Iraq


"Kavik Kang" <kavik_kang@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:H013g.312$DT5.273@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hahahahaha. Anyone who reads the original from which he dishonestly took
these out-of-context clips would laugh at the lie he has created through
creative editing. The actual document says essentially the opposite of
what he has attempted to portray, hahahahahaha.

Hahaha, maybe you should put a little effort into this and then you might be
taken seriously instead of skimmed over like the lightweight airhead you
are.

<NY.Transfer_News@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1145855414.2294093356.3441142768@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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US Army War College Study: What Went Wrong in Iraq

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

sent by Al Dykes (panix.chat.politics) - Apr 23, 2006

A readable 44 page study of Operation Iraqi Freedom published by the
US Army War College. It has a rare, if short, description of what
happened in Fallujah and discusses Rumsfeld's role in strategt and
troop levels. I've inserted clips of both, below.

US Army.mil - Strategic Studies Institute - Dec, 2005
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=637

REVISIONS IN NEED OF REVISING:

WHAT WENT WRONG IN THE IRAQ WAR

by David C. Hendrickson and Robert W. Tucker
December 2005

SUMMARY

The dramatic contrast between expectations and reality in the Iraq war
has sparked a wide-ranging debate over "what went wrong." According
to many critics, civilian planners made a series of critical mistakes
that have turned what might have been a successful war and occupation
into a fiasco. The most common critique takes roughly the following
form:

Though the war plan to topple Saddam was brilliant, planning for the
peace was woefully insufficient.

The United States did not have a sufficient number of troops to
restore order in Iraq after the U.S. invasion and also failed to
develop a plan to stop the widespread looting that occurred in the
immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.

The administration erred in disbanding the Iraq army, which might
have played a valuable role in restoring security to the country.

The United States erred further in its harsh decrees proscribing
members of the Ba'ath party from participation in Iraq's public
life-a decision, like that which disbanded the army, needlessly
antagonizing the Sunnis and pushing many of them into the insurgency.

The Bush administration needlessly antagonized the international
community-including both the United Nations and our European
allies-and made it much more difficult to obtain help for the
occupation and reconstruction of the country.

The Bush administration was too slow in making funds available for
reconstruction and created a labyrinth bureaucracy for the awarding
of contracts.

...

"...The Fallujah operation after the November 2004 U.S.
presidential election had the signal advantage of destroying many
car-bomb factories, but it also drove 300,000 Sunnis from their
homes and completely devastated the city. .... Page 18

...

Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was, in basic respects, a test of the
theory that civilians must intervene in the military planning
process and force their perspectives down the chain of command.59
Secretary Rumsfeld did this in the first instance by starting the
bidding for the forces committed to the invasion at 75,000 troops
and intimating that a smaller number would be entirely
adequate. Events have shown that the number was ludicrously small
in relation to the tasks given to U.S. forces, and that Army Chief
of Staff General Eric Shinseki was right in seeing the need for
much larger numbers. On this crucial question, certainly, the
record of Iraq war planning does nothing to advance the case for
civilian activism.

A more appropriate lesson is that there are certain intrinsic
limits to what military power can accomplish that both defenders
and critics of the administration's course of action have
ignored. "Policy must know the instrument it is to employ," says
Clausewtiz in one of his enduring formulations. For certain
purposes, like the creation of a liberal democratic society that
will be a model for others, it seems fair to conclude that military
power is a blunt instrument, destined by its very nature to give
rise to unintended and unwelcome consequences.

...


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