Politics > Politics-USA > This ain't the cakewalk the Republican administration said it was gonna be
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
26 Aug 2006 09:59:26 AM |
| Object: |
This ain't the cakewalk the Republican administration said it was gonna be |
From The Boston Globe, 8/26/06:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/26/prolonged_war_wasnt_in_the_deal/?rss_id=Boston%20Globe%20--%20Editorial/Op-ed%20pages
Prolonged war wasn't in the deal
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist
VIETNAM CREEP in Iraq continued this week as the Marines said they
would recall up to 2,500 troops.
Guy Stratton, the head of the Marines' manpower mobilization, told
reporters, ``We've been tracking our volunteer numbers for the last
two years. If you tracked it on a time line or chart, you would see it
going down."
This was not the time line that President Bush hoped for, either for
Iraqi liberation or American patriotism.
He admitted as much in a testy press conference this week.
Asked if he was frustrated, he said, ``Frustrated? Sometimes I'm
frustrated. . . . These are challenging times, and they're difficult
times, and they're straining the psyche of our country."
This is from the man who strained to promise us a Rose Garden war.
The 2,500 reservists are not a big number in an occupation of 138,000
soldiers, but they are a huge reminder of one of the biggest lies that
the administration told us to justify the invasion.
Just before the hostilities, the Army Chief of Staff, General Eric
Shinseki, said at a Senate hearing that ``something on the order of
several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required in
postwar Iraq.
``We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of
geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions
that could lead to other problems."
Top administration officials all but called Shinseki crazy, even
though almost none of them had ever fought in a war.
They sold the fantasy that high-tech weapons in the air would reduce
the need for boots on the ground.
They downplayed fears that soldiers would need to corral a civil war.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said at a House hearing that
predictions, ``such as the notion that it will take several hundred
thousand US troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are
wildly off the mark.
First, it's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide
stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war
itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his
army.
Hard to imagine."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said it was ``not logical" to
him that it would take as many forces for the occupation as were
needed for the invasion.
``We have no idea how long the war will last," Rumsfeld told
reporters.
``We don't know to what extent there may or may not be weapons of mass
destruction used. We don't know -- have any idea whether or not there
would be ethnic strife. We don't know exactly how long it would take
to find weapons of mass destruction and destroy them -- those sites.
There are so many variables that it is not knowable.
``However I will say this: What is, I think, reasonably certain is the
idea that it would take several hundred thousand US forces I think is
far from the mark . . . Any idea that it's several hundred thousand
over any sustained period is simply not the case."
Vice President ***** Cheney, in the same appearance on NBC's ``Meet the
Press" during which he claimed Iraqis ``will welcome as liberators the
United States," said of Shinseki's estimate, ``I disagree . . . To
suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after
military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is
accurate. I think that's an overstatement."
There were groups with gravitas back in 2003 that knew Shinseki was
right.
A Council on Foreign Relations task force, one that included John
Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted
postwar troop estimates of 75,000 to more than 200,000 and said, ``The
task force recommends that deployments for peace stabilization err on
the side of robustness."
Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have proven to be so wildly off the
mark that Frederick Kagan, a military historian from the conservative,
prowar American Enterprise Institute, last year told the Houston
Chronicle, ``The Army needs to grow by about 200,000 soldiers.
Reorganizing the troops we have now is rearranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic."
The ship is listing so badly that it is being abandoned by both the
right and the left.
In announcing the involuntary call-up of Marines, spokesman Major
Steven O'Connor said, ``When Baghdad fell, we thought that this was
not going to be a prolonged battle."
Until we get out of Iraq, Bush has to soothe the American psyche.
He can start by firing Rumsfeld, who told us the battle would not be
prolonged.
That would be a good first step to rearranging the chairs.
__________________________________________________________
Republican Mission Impossible
Harry
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| User: "Bradley K. Sherman" |
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| Title: Re: This ain't the cakewalk the Republican administration said it was gonna be |
26 Aug 2006 10:05:44 AM |
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In article <cmo0f2p3ne6g148rn39394bjiajm0f10ej@4ax.com>,
Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
From The Boston Globe, 8/26/06:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/26/prolonged_war_wasnt_in_the_deal/?rss_id=Boston%20Globe%20--%20Editorial/Op-ed%20pages
Prolonged war wasn't in the deal
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist
VIETNAM CREEP in Iraq continued this week as the Marines said they
would recall up to 2,500 troops.
...
This story from WaPo pretty much shows that Moqtada al-Sadr
has wrested control of Maysan province from the Coalition:
| ...
| The last of 12,000 British troops left the camp in Amarah, the
| capital of southern Maysan province, on Thursday after continued
| mortar attacks by a local Shiite Muslim militia that residents
| said was controlled by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
| Adopting guerrilla tactics used in North Africa during World War
| II, 600 of the soldiers will soon slip into the marshlands and
| deserts near the Iranian border to prevent weapons smuggling.
| ...
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501315.html>
If the British abandon a fixed location to take up guerrilla warfare,
that pretty much establishes that al-Sadr is the one running the show
in that region.
--bks
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| User: "JustLooking" |
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| Title: Re: This ain't the cakewalk the Republican administration said it was gonna be |
26 Aug 2006 10:56:31 AM |
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British were never much smarter than the American bozos in Iraq ...more
decency ...yes ...
more common sense ..yes. But that's all.
"Bradley K. Sherman" <bks@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ecpo07$s3a$1@reader2.panix.com...
In article <cmo0f2p3ne6g148rn39394bjiajm0f10ej@4ax.com>,
Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
From The Boston Globe, 8/26/06:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/26/prolonged_war_wasnt_in_the_deal/?rss_id=Boston%20Globe%20--%20Editorial/Op-ed%20pages
Prolonged war wasn't in the deal
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist
VIETNAM CREEP in Iraq continued this week as the Marines said they
would recall up to 2,500 troops.
...
This story from WaPo pretty much shows that Moqtada al-Sadr
has wrested control of Maysan province from the Coalition:
| ...
| The last of 12,000 British troops left the camp in Amarah, the
| capital of southern Maysan province, on Thursday after continued
| mortar attacks by a local Shiite Muslim militia that residents
| said was controlled by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
| Adopting guerrilla tactics used in North Africa during World War
| II, 600 of the soldiers will soon slip into the marshlands and
| deserts near the Iranian border to prevent weapons smuggling.
| ...
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501315.html>
If the British abandon a fixed location to take up guerrilla warfare,
that pretty much establishes that al-Sadr is the one running the show
in that region.
--bks
.
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