Charges of Poor Planning for War Revived

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041210/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_military

<snip>

Critics questioned why the Pentagon has been unable to send enough armored equipment 21 months into the war. They said war planners had too rosy a picture of how the campaign would unfold and so didn't think so many troops and so much armor would be needed for so long.


"This is about faulty analysis and a failed strategy," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee. "We've never had enough troops on the ground since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government to deal with the insurgency because we didn't expect one."


Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank, agreed.


"We have pretty much miscalculated every step along the way — why we went, how we should do it, what we needed, what support we would have, how long it would last — we pretty much got it all wrong," he said.


The war was meant to be fought at rapid speed by a limited-size force with international help to disarm Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. Instead, no weapons were found, the international community largely refused to participate and officials have been forced to increase the size of the force there, now going up to 150,000 troops.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Blanket stupidity

and arrogance. What I don't get is why all these freepers who 'support the troops' aren't clamoring for an explanation of where all the billions for this war went, if not to armor for protecting the troops. Oh, I forgot. They don't care, do they?

[dbt]

2. Chris Rock has a brilliant analogy of this war-to-make-Cheney-rich:

"They ain't gonna cure no AIDS. They don't make no money off a cure. They make money sellin' medicine to people that got AIDS!"

bu$h's bloated cronies won't make any money by winning (or losing!) in Eye-Rack; they'll make their money while the war is going on. That's what they planned for.

Somebody needs to burn in Hell for this.

:freak:
dbt

[BikeWriter]

3. Same dayumed shit we put up with in VietNam!

General Zinni planned the war...

"When I was commander of CENTCOM, we had a plan for an invasion of Iraq, and it had specific numbers in it. We wanted to go in there with 350,000 to 380,000 troops."

"General Eric Shinseki, the army commander, asked for the original number."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6593163?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1100666488500&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872

"Senior officers frequently cite what they believe was the vindictive treatment of then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki after he said early in 2003 that the administration was underestimating the number of U.S. troops that would be required to occupy postwar Iraq."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11227-2004May8.html

'Shinseki presciently warned before the war that at least 200,000 troops would be needed to occupy Iraq after an invasion. Wolfowitz denounced that estimate as "wildly off the mark," while, in a major break with tradition, neither Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz attended Shinseki's farewell ceremony where he cautioned against "a 12-division strategy for a 10-division army."'
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2545

[SheLiberal]

4. Last night on CBS News

The reporter said no one predicted that we would still be in Iraq fighting a guerrilla war. I shouted to the TV there were many people saying that before the war but no MSM would report on it and now to cover their butts they deny that it ever happened. They could at least speak the truth now if MSM had any guts.

Sherri

[BikeWriter]

8. We were certainly predicting it!

There were plenty of military leaders predicting it in those same sources I posted. Rummy didn't use enough troops to sustain the shock and awe, then secure the country.

[Garbo 2004]

10. Those who raised the potential for a quagmire & guerilla war were derided

by the Administration. Oh no, you silly people, we'll be out of there in three months. The Iraqis will welcome us with flowers. No need for more boots on the ground. No need for plans for the aftermath of regime change. Believing will make it so.

And as I recall the MSM did report on people warning of the potential for a prolonged guerilla war as well as the Administration scorning such predictions. The slant and volume of the reporting of course favored the Administration's "we know what we're doing."

Now with typical amnesia they report in the words of our former NSA, "no one could have imagined?" Condi couldn't imagine using airplanes as weapons although I'd read of the various previous plots to do so years before in the MS press.

Or was the reporter just repeating the Administration's version of history as fact without bothering to check or mention what the press previously reported? That's seems to be what much of the MSM does these days. They too often aid and abet the Administration in recreating history. I've cut down on watching most network news since it appears the reporters and anchors themselves are like parrots for the Administration and its talking points and don't even know or remember what their own networks previously reported.

[LynnTheDem]

13. Yep some people predicted it...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1086396

[hollowdweller]

5. Democratic Congressmen? Are you going to take some $$ from Star Wars

and put it into armor? Here is a chance to respond and score some points!

[truthisfreedom]

6. in the future, they won't refer to Iraq as Vietnam. they'll refer to all

war debacles as "Iraqs."

[UpInArms]

7. here's the "flowers and sweets" premise in action

the neo-cons f**ked royally.

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/664

Transcript of Iraq Seminar with Richard Perle and Kanan Makiya
Sponsored by Benador Associates

March 17, 2003

National Press Club
Washington, DC
Monday, 17 March 2003

excerpt:

KANAN MAKIYA: I most certainly do agree with that. As I told the President on January 10th, I think they will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case.

This is a remarkable situation in which the population of a country that's about to have a war waged over its head positively wants the war while all kinds of other countries don't for one reason or another. That should tell us a lot about this war and about the future (INAUDIBLE) which I think is desufficiently emphasized.

As in regards to what the opposition can do inside the Iraqi cities, its resources are great. There are networks of contacts that have been cultivated over many, many years. We expect that they will be working, they already are, and precisely how and in what ways it would not be wise to go into.

(INAUDIBLE QUESTIONER):

KANAN MAKIYA: Well, I just answered the first part of your question. Yes, I do think that that's how the American soldiers will be received. Regarding the Observer article, let me say that I like the opposition as a whole do not favor an extended period of military occupation and upon my return, I have had extensive meetings and it is clear that whatever the status of that original idea that was (INAUDIBLE), it is clear that that is not what the United States is going to do. I also was worried that the commitments to the (INAUDIBLE) and democracy may be tarnished by association with the existing structures of the (INAUDIBLE) party inside Iraq and I am now assured that the United States intends to dismantle those structures. Those two points alone give me great, great confidence. I think we're on the right track. I think we have made enormous progress and we are beginning now to work closely with the United States government in ways that I wish had happened several months ago, six months ago or whatever. But better late than never.

...more...

stupid ignorant paid-for lying freakin' assholes :argh:

[BikeWriter]

9. I'll second that emotion!

stupid ignorant paid-for lying freakin' assholes :argh:

[LynnTheDem]

11. Maybe US State Media will also report US troops are RUNNING OUT OF AMMO

BULLETS. RUNNING OUT.

bush rushed our troops into a "last resort preemptive strike to spread democracy invasion & occupation -yes it DOES sound damn STUPID, doesn't it- without the troops having enough rifles and ammo and body armor and a whole lot of other vital equipment...and our troops STILL don't have enough body armor, armor, or BULLETS.

[LynnTheDem]

12. TOO BAD rightwingnuts CAN'T READ; TWO of their beliefs AGAIN debunked

"no weapons were found, the international community largely refused to participate..."

60% of bush supporters still think Iraq had WMD and the US has actually found some and that the world largely supported bush's war of aggression.

A few more years of the media reporting the facts, and ya know, I think some of them 60% are gonna finally get it. I really do.