Harvey wrote:

"Erik A. Mattila" <emattila@oco.net> wrote in message
news:4181CE0F.4050805@oco.net...

Harvey wrote:

"Erik A. Mattila" <emattila@oco.net> wrote in message

*That* in and of itself doesn't wash at all. It will stick to the
political wall about as well as directly blaming Bush for the
abuses at Abu Ghraib. The more reasonable answer is blaming Bush
for going in with too few troops, a strategic decision that he's
directly culpable for as CC... but that's about it.

Actually, Harvey, I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head.
What I don't understand, however, is why you wouldn't see the "too
few troops" issue as significant, or more significant than, say,
holding folks way down the chain of command accountable.

But there is, possibly, a "micromanagement" issue involved.
Tuesday's Frontline episode on Don Rumsfeld's career, for example,
mentiond in passing the spite felt by Pentagon professionals
towards both Johnson and Nixon for micromanaging Vietnam.

I saw Frontline, too. They bring out some interesting points
(without presenting *anyone* who disagrees with the basic thrust, as
is usual on their stuff that's political... saying "Rumsfeld
declined our invitation for an interview" is no excuse for this).

I sort of see what you're saying...but then Macgregor did a pretty
good job of watching Rumsfeld back...But wasn't the "basic thrust"
more or less that Rummy had "team-B'd" the Pentagon? You know what I
mean (I'm refering to DCI GHW Bush's political "team-b", composed
mostly of folks from the Committee for the Present Danger group, that
re-analyzed the CIA Team A report - the military assessment of the
Soviets. Rumsfleld had done a similar thing with the Pentagon.

I'm not familiar with what you're referring to (cite?).

Here's a pretty good rundown:
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=140711

It was also the topic of Robert Scheer's "With Enough Shovels" (1983)

My impression

generally was that the "transformation" issue that Rumsfeld was
busying himself with before 9/11... Frontline gave the impression he
might leave/get the sack over it... was probably a reasonable
endeavor. Reasonable in that we were unlikely to be fighting large
scale battles with, to take an example that obviously no longer
applies, the Soviet Union over western Europe. An emphasis on small
highly trained and plugged-in special ops units rather than armored
divisions, the small "streetfighter" coastal boats rather than
aircraft carriers, etc. Everyone I've ever talked to that's worked in
the Pentagon has said that the inertia in the place is huge, and
getting anything like that done would take a force of nature. He
obviously stepped on a lot of toes.

Yep...and what you say is very true, imo. However...and this is where
we have to come back to reality...Bush made it clear in his campaign
message (2000) that he would not engage in "Nation Building." We
don't need to debate why he recanted on his promise, but we need to
recognize that he did and it involved mobilizing armed forces for this
purpose. So, from the Pentagon's pov, what's required to be "prepared"
for any contingency? I think the Pentagon Generals were prepared,
since the Powell Doctrine was still respected in 2000, and I think
just about all the brass had a keen interest in the smaller surgical
approach you are mentioning.

There's no question that combat phase of the invasion included
sufficient troops, and it quite likely could have been accomplished
with less boots on the ground. That's not the issue.

I mean, let pretend for a moment that the only US interest was
oil...but there's not enough boots on the ground to secure the oil
infrastructure.

One huge criticism from military people is that the
invasion/occupation plan did not include utilizing the Iraqi military
and 3rd level Baathist Bureaucrats to stabilize the country in the
aftermath. That's pretty standard practice. The immediate result was
the looting. It really couldn't be stopped since there was no way
that a couple of hundred thousand coalition troops could assume that
task in a timely manner, if at all.

And the mentality behind fighting that good fight (if you agree it
was one) was probably carried over into Iraq... probably way too much
so, in retrospect, leading to some of the problems now. This ammo
dump thing, for one, if it turns out that way. Not sealing the
borders. Arguably not blowing the insurgents out of Fallujah a long
time ago, although I blame treading way too lightly on Muslim
sentiment for most of that.

But you see, guerilla warfare, or asymetrical warfare, has it's own
methodology. Guerillas have this significant advantage of mobility
and situational opportunity because they do not have to drag this huge
logistical infrastructure around behind them as a conventional
military does.

But that is also the gureillas's chief weakness. Put it this way,
"guerilla warfare" uses two components, the active fighters and the
passive fighters. The passive fighters never pick up a weapon, but
support the active fighters in many way. The outnumber the active
ones at least 100 to 1. Without the passives, the actives cannot
function effectively. What all this means is that you have to
showcase "Muslim sentiment" in order to exploit the weakness of the
active fighters. That means really cow-towing to the general
population, to effectively convince the passive guerillas that it is
not in their better intrests to support the active guerillas.

You simply can't do this by operations which include heavy collateral
damage. Killing "civilians" in Falluja has the opposite impact on
combat goals as killing civilians in Dresden did.

I have no problems with holding Bush accountable for too few troops,
if that's what you think. If you want to say that the forces
committed were small enough to increase the likelyhood of something
like this happening, that's also reasonable. What's absolutely
stupid is holding Bush directly responsible for the lapse, if indeed
it even occurred. You could do this if you found the executive order
saying "don't gaurd the dumps," and I don't think you're going to
find that.

My position on that, and many other's, is that securing enemy arms is
fundamental military tactics, a knee-jerk automatic response built
into the SOP of any military unit in combat. Of course it's not
always possible. So you look at why it isn't possible, and the size
issue comes up. So you say "but it would have been possible if we
had more troops"...anyway, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with
this.

Sure, and the smaller the force the more likely something like this
is going to happen, if it has. The Pentagon afaik still insists the
area was secure. It certainly *should* have been; I doubt it's in
anyone's military doctrine to leave huge ammo dumps unsecured in your
rear, even the French. Whether they had the troops to provide
adequate security is another question.

I have no problem with blaming Bush for things it's reasonable to
blame him for. If everyone in the country decided to vote for
Badnarik instead of Bush based on that, I'd certainly be happy.

That's why we prefer "accountable" I suppose. But in this case the
"whole" is what's wrong - the whole process that led up to our
inability to secure those weapons - and that's an upper managment
issue.

But you can already hear the defense coming from the administration:
"I asked them if they needed more troops, and the commanders on the
ground say they don't." He's said this many times before this ever
came up. On the face of that, if commanders on the ground are leaving
ammo dumps wide open in their rear because they don't have enough
troops, then it's at least partially a lower management problem for
not speaking up.

OTOH, if Franks was beaten into submission on the smaller force issue
by repeated kicks in the balls from Rumsfeld, how likely is he to do
that?

I have no problem with criticism along those lines because it's
reasonable. What's annoying to me is the automatic acceptance that
something has happened when there's not much evidence yet that it
has, and the blinkered simplemindedness behind "Bush didn't gaurd the
dump."

But it's Bush's war, Harvey. We can harp on about 20/20 hindsight
till hell freezes over, but meanwhile we can dig up all the criticism
that was directed at the Bush Administration BEFORE the fact which has
now been shown to be accurate. Things like Ritter's claim that the
WMDs had been effectively destroyed by the UN to Zinni's critique of
projected troop strength.

But the KCAL 9 story is clear on one thing: The bunker seals were
cut and the doors left open as the 101st moved on to Baghdad. We
don't have any conclusive picture yet, as you point out, but we do
have something else...know as "a preponderence of the evidence."

The photojournalist says they were not secured; the military says
they were in their perimeter and they were. How is it clear?

I'm talking about when the 101st left the area and moved on to
Baghdad. I would hope their position was secure while they were there.
Just kidding...that's pretty standard practice.