NotBush2004 wrote:

Published on Monday, January 12, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

War College Study Calls Iraq a 'Detour'

Institute's report warns anti-terror campaign may launch 'open-ended and
gratuitous conflict.'

by Chuck Neubauer and Ken Silverstein

WASHINGTON - A report published by the Army War College criticizes the
Bush
administration's global war on terrorism as "unfocused" and contends that
the war in Iraq is "unnecessary" and a "detour" that has diverted
attention
and resources from the threat posed by Al Qaeda.

The report warns that the administration's global war on terrorism may
have
set the United States "on a course of open-ended and gratuitous conflict
with states and non-state entities that pose no serious threat to the
United
States."
The report by Jeffrey Record, a visiting research professor at the
Strategic
Studies Institute of the Army War College, calls for downsizing the
war on
terrorism and focusing instead on the threat from Al Qaeda, the terror
network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center
and
the Pentagon as well as other sites around the world.

"The global war on terrorism as presently defined and conducted is
strategically unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver, and
threatens to dissipate U.S. military and other resources in an endless
and
hopeless search for absolute security," Record wrote, concluding his
56-page
monograph. "The United States may be able to defeat, even destroy, Al
Qaeda,
but it cannot rid the world of terrorism, much less evil."

Record calls the war in Iraq "an unnecessary preventative war" that has
"diverted attention and resources away from securing the American
homeland
against further assault by an undeterrable Al Qaeda." The Iraq war was a
"detour" from the war on terrorism, he said.

The Army War College, located in Carlisle, Pa., trains military and
civilian
officials in the theory and application of military strategy using
land-based forces. The report contains a disclaimer stating that it
does not
necessarily represent the views of the Army, the Pentagon or the U.S.
government.

In the foreword to the report, found on the Internet at
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.pdf ,
Douglas
C. Lovelace Jr., the institute's director, said the monograph was offered
"as a contribution to the national security debate over the aims and
course
of the war on terrorism."

Record, a former staff member for the Senate Armed Services Committee,
has
written six books on military issues. He also teaches at the Air
Force's Air
War College in Montgomery, Ala.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, an
Arlington,
Va.-based research organization that focuses on military affairs, said:
"There's no question that Iraq has diverted U.S. attention from the
war on
terrorism. However, [the U.S.] invaded Iraq to resolve a potentially more
serious threat that American intelligence indicated was quite urgent -
that
being the threat of weapons of mass destruction.. All intelligence
estimates
pointed to an urgent threat."

Daniel Benjamin, a member of the National Security Council staff in
the late
1990s, said, "The criticism does not seem out of line with many of the
conversations I have had with officers in every branch of the military."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0112-01.htm

Once again, a Bush hater pushing a dishonest view of a monograph (that's
what Record called it on the radio the other day). This is no "report,"
as if a committee were given money to go study something and conclude
objectively;

put out an opposing view to "get the administration."

Rather than copying and pasting crap from Common Dreams,

to go read Record's essay, then comment on that. I'd be delighted to see
some liberal to take that on and discuss it in a respectful manner. It's
at http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/03spring/record.htm.