AN LTC SPEAKS OUT

First, let's recall three comments from before the Iraq War, one from the Army Chief of Staff and one each from Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

Army chief: Force to occupy Iraq massive
USA Today
Posted 2/25/2003 2:25 PM
Updated 2/25/2003 6:46 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army's top general said Tuesday a military occupying force for a postwar Iraq could total several hundred thousand soldiers.

[snip]

Iraq is "a piece of geography that's fairly significant," Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he said any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with "ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."

In response to questioning by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the committee, Shinseki said he couldn't give specific numbers of the size of an occupation force but would rely on the recommendations of commanders in the region.

"How about a range?" said Levin.
"I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," the general said.

Rumsfeld: ... However, I will say this; what is, I think, reasonably certain is the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far from the mark. (3/27/03)

Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force's Size
By Eric Schmitt
New York Times
February 28, 2003
Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, "wildly off the mark."


We all know now that Shinseki was right and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were wrong, very wrong. Now, we have a scathing criticism of not merely the inept civilian leadership but also of the flagsofficers involved in the Iraq Fiasco.

A failure in generalship
By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling
Armed Forces Journal
ARMY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago.
(excerpts with notes)

In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. [NOTE: this is the main thesis of McMaster's book on the Vietnam War, Dereliction of Duty]

The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

Failures of Generalship in Iraq

America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. First, throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly. Second, America's generals failed to estimate correctly both the means and the ways necessary to achieve the aims of policy prior to beginning the war in Iraq. Finally, America's generals did not provide Congress and the public with an accurate assessment of the conflict in Iraq.

The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops.

Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq.