Dodging the Question: Rumsfeld and Ari

Recently, there has been much discussion about the wisdom of the somewhat unconventional battle strategy of the U.S. and British forces. This hasn’t been knee-jerk liberals criticizing the administration: it’s been military experts and former generals. Though Rumsfeld denies it, we have plenty of credible reports that there have been heated arguments within the adminstration and Pentagon about Rumsfeld’s insistence on limiting the number of troops involved, invading before the forces were really ready to move, and hastening the course of everything. These same sources say that he insisted that the conflict would be over in days as the regime collapsed, despite many experts in the field telling him that hatred for Saddam wasn’t the only factor.

This isn’t a new conflict by any means: the debate over how the military should work has been going on since Rumsfeld came into power: his ideas about how the military should be organized, and how it should conduct, have been an extremely controversial issue among military tacticians: and this is only the second time that they are getting a field test.

But the response of Rumsfeld and Ari, whenever asked about the wisdom of their war plans, is simply to blame the tactics of Iraqi troops for all the failings so far.

This is an utterly ridiculous evasion. Of course Iraqi troops are responsible for what they are doing. But the responsibility of our leaders is to predict and counter-act those moves. And none of them are particularly surprising. Prior to this conflict, many people insisted that we field many more troops than we have, and move more slowly, and be very very wary of Iraqi tactics that mix guerilla strategy with regular troops (remember the big war-game fiasco?). The administration nixed these concerns, and nixed them for particular reasons that it insisted were more important. It made those claims, and they are being tested, and they have an obligation to actually respond to potential evidence that things aren’t as they assured everyone. This isn’t just a matter of disclosure: it’s a matter of demonstrating that they are actually thinking about all the different potential scenarios and how to deal with them, rather than foolishly sticking with a single expectation, never letting anything shake that worldview, and inexplicably blaming the divergences on the Iraqis (when the whole POINT was for them to predict what the Iraqis would do!)

Indeed, this seems to be a serious brain fart in a lot of people: if something goes wrong, it must be all the bad-guy’s fault, because only one person ever can be to blame for bad things that happen: no matter how predictable the bad-guys responses were, and no matter how misguided your own strategies were.

I’m not trying to say that this issue is conclusive. Rumsfeld may well turn out to be right. But if he’s right, it should be in a way that takes into account and explains all the evidence, not simply declares that contrary evidence is all the fault of the very enemy he is paid to predict an counter.

My understanding has always been that one of the major reasons for the rush to invade before the end of March was to commence operations before the worst of the summer heat. Thus I have no problem accepting that there was some wishful thinking on the administration’s part as to how many troops were necessary to compete this adventure quickly.

There do seem to have been quite a load of ass-covering ‘clarifications’ concenring the expected length of the conflict coming from the White House and DoD over the past 48 hours, suggesting that certain members of the administration actually deluded themselves into thinking that the Ba’athists and the Iraqi army, faced with an invasion, would not, like, fight back. I find particularly silly the administration’s early claims that four days of unopposed advance across 200 miles of empty desert, avoiding nearly all population centers, somehow demonstrates our overwhelming military superiority. The proof will come if and when we truly engage Iraqi forces on a large scale. Judging from the fragmentary reports of battles in Umm Qasr and elsewhere, planners’ extreme concerns about getting bogged down in urban fighting are certainly justified.

Somewhere I seem to recall reading that for success against a dug-in defence on its home turf, the minimum ratio of attackers to defenders should be 3-1. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression was the invasion started with about a 1-1 ratio attackers to defenders. Yes, I realize that many of the defenders are considered of minimal effectiveness.

OTOH, it’s only the fifth day or so of the campaign; if we are still camped outside of Baghdad in a months’ time, I’d say that the initial plan was badly flawed after all. In any event, today’s oblique reports that additional troops are being hustled to the theater seem to indicate that someone in the administration feels we may have started without sufficient troops to guarantee quick success.

BTW, what does Fleischer have to do with this? I mean, basically he’s just a mouthpiece. Shouldn’t we be asking these questions of the President?

Somehow I missed this one. I’ve seen it mentioned on other threads. Please enlighten me with a link or a quick rundown.

Frankly, I think the war has been going pretty well, especially considering how far things have gone away from the original war plan. War is about contingencies - things will always go differently then how you planned. That’s why you need flexibility. We launched the war at least a day earlier than we planned, on the gamble (wisely taken, IMO) that we could nail Saddam at the outset. We expected to have an entire northern front that isn’t there. We have nasty sandstorms with 100mph gusts. We have had, in some places, more retalitation then we expected, and less retaliation than expected in others. Yet, here’s the current tally:

  • We’ve taken Umm Qasr, and look close to taking Basra.
  • Large sections of southern Iraq are under Allied control, including numerous important airfields, and power plants.
  • With the taking of Umm Qasr, we now effectively control the flow of goods into Iraq, especially important for humanitarian action.
  • We’ve secured most of the oil fields, and prevented any significant damage.
  • We’ve managed thus far to keep civilian casualties extremely low.
  • We’ve kept the civilian infrastructure of Iraq remarkably intact, even through enormous bombing campaigns.
  • Our troops are parked just outside Baghdad.
  • Iraq’s central command appears to be pretty much gone.

This is in 5 days. Pretty damned impressive, I’d say. So if I were Rumsfeld, or Fleischer, and I had a bunch of reporters making comparisons to Vietnam and throwing around the word “quagmire” like it was the National Word of the Day, I’d be pretty damned annoyed. If Rumsfeld is the mastermind of this whole invasion, then I think he’s doing a pretty good job. The only people I ever saw who were talking about the war being over in a matter of days were the media themselves. The President himself always referred to our “lengthy” expedition in Iraq, and I took him at his word. I didn’t expect a cakewalk - I expected, in fact, pretty much what we’ve got here.
Jeff

I think the wrangling back and forth with Turkey might have had something to with us not being able to field as many troops as we might have wanted.

In any event the media is overreacting as usual and making the situation seem far more dire than it probably is.

Sure did. I believe that those troops who would have been on their way in from Turkey are now making their way to Kuwait. They’ll be there in two weeks.

Buh?

This is the same media that reported that the 51st had surrendered wholesale, then later had to report that we had engaged the 51st in combat at Basra, and that the other report had been a bit of morale-boosting propoganda by the PTB?

“The Media”, in cases of war, almost invariably makes it look BETTER than it is. We don’t see dead bodies or hospitals full of wounded children, and that is, actually, How It Is. We find out later just how bad it actually was.

Not from what I’ve seen. The media sells news, and in order to do so, it has to sound exciting. Thus, every little thing that goes right is a Major Victory for the US. Similarly, every little thing that goes wrong is a Devestating Setback that threatens to leave us in a Quagmire (god, I’m growing to hate that word). The war was never going as well as the media originally painted it - they made it seem as if the entire Iraqi army had rolled over. But it’s also not nearly as bad as they’re now making it seem.

Jeff

Hmm.

Well, I haven’t been watching CNN or the like, I’m basing my estimates on the BBC and on various newspapers.

Maybe it’s more Hollywoodised in the states.

Dead bodies? In a war? :shock:

“Hospitals full of wounded children” huh? That’s “how it is?” Forgive my skepticism but how in the hell do you know “how it is” other than by watching footage that the Iraqi propaganda machine has been putting out?

ElJeffe has it right, the media has been blowing every trickle of information it gets out of proportion. The 24 hour news networks wouldn’t have much to do if they weren’t speculating on every report they got their hands on. People tend to channel surf when the news isn’t compelling enough.

I notice that you are posting on the UK however, that may limit your exposure to this kind of thing.

Maybe it is a little early to be passing judgment on the progress of the war or the war plan. Consider this from the November 14, 2001 New York Observer:

Of course, we all know how that turned out…

I remain cautiously hopeful, but there was never any way this would be a short war with virtually no casualties. The problem with any war is that the enemy tends to have a say in the progress and outcome.

Azael

Are you serious?

Tell you what, I’ll make a bet with you. If stuff like this, by that famous Iraqi propagandist Robert Fisk, isn’t, actually, “the way it is,” you know, just like it is in every war we’ve ever fought, I’ll mail you ten shiny $100 notes.

On the other hand, if it is, you’ll acknowledge that saying something like “what? civilian casualties? In a war?” is also pretty daft.

Good God, why not just trust Al-Jazeera or Iraqi state TV?

The British newspapers are infinitely more useful than the Beeb.

What, like The Independent and The Guardian and The Times? Sorry for not pointing out that these were the “multiple newspapers” (in the main) that I alluded to earlier.

I find them a useful source of more detailed information, but I don’t feel that Radio Four comes across as too Al Jazeera like…

Let’s see…

In five days, the coalition has:

[ul]
[li]Taken control of the southern oil fields, largely intact[/li][li]Taken control of Umm Qusar[/li][li]Taken control of the E2 and E3 airfields, plus god knows what else in the western desert[/li][li]Isolated Basra[/li][li]Moved two heavy divisions all the way to Baghdad[/li][li]Killed thousands of enemy soldiers[/li][li]Captured 3,500 enemy soldiers[/li][li]Destroyed thousands of targets by air[/li][/ul]

During this time, they’ve lost less than 50 soldiers, most to accidents and friendly fire.

Don’t you think it’s a little to early to declare that the coalition has lost the war, and to call for Rummy’s head?

You could at least wait until they take Baghdad.

To get to the OP, yes Rummy and Ari are evading the real questions. I think the Bushistas were counting on being welcomed with dancing in the street by the Iraqi people, as well as mass surrenders. they wanted the cameras up front on what they thought would be big victory march featuring thousands of tearful iraqis singing the praises of GWB. Somehow, they didn’t figure that the enemy might fight back, which, if you’re going to plan a war, you should at least consider as a remote possibility.

BTW, I’m tired of hearing how "great’ things are going for the US. It’s not going that damn great if you’re one of those kids with a bullethole in middle of your forehead.

Sam,
with all due respect, i don’t think that Bush had the right to spend any Americans lives on this invasion, much less fifty. That’s fifty kids who died for no good reason, IMO.

Sam,

The issue has never been “will the coalition lose the war?” The issue has been “at what cost will victory come?”

And the issue, now, is, did Bush and Rumsfeld say that things would be far, far, easier than they have turned out to be, despite the advice of the military top brass? Were they, in other words, willfully ignorant, or willfully misleading?

As expected, in an attempt to utterly avoid the the issue, you’re missing the point. This isn’t about a call for anyone’s head, or even how fast we move: this is about particular and contentious opinions about military strategy. None of the things you list are at all surprising: we knew we could drop tons of bombs, we knew that regular army would surrender the way it did in 1991 (though not in the same numbers) we knew that our tanks could travel fast, especially with immense air cover. We’ve faced little resistence outside of cities and towns. None of this is the point. The point is that Rumsfeld made particular choices, and they have particular results. They are controversial strategies among even the Pentagon, and we are testing them out.

The problem is that the administration has taken a stance in which everything can be explained away: those strategies are thus made unfalsifiable: they can’t by definition be worse than anything else. They were, amazingly, exactly the right strategy to take, no matter what. And I don’t think that sort of stance serves anyone.

Look, I’ve taken both sides of this issue. I left a message last night where I was worrying about a dangerously exposed flank and violation of army doctrine (not having an armored cav division and an MP division protecting the supply lines). This could in fact be a problem.

The thing is, none of us are military generals, so we’re all just talking out of our asses. And the professionals on this are split. Gen McCaffrey is saying this plan is seriously flawed. General Wesley Clark is on the fence. Another General on CNN says that he thinks it’s a ‘brilliant’ plan.

The split here, I think is between the conservative Generals and the aggressive ones. McCaffrey is a conservative. He wants to take no chances. Tommy Franks is more aggressive. He believe in Patton’s maxim, that timidity in warfare is disastrous.

Speaking of Patton… Don’t forget, he was famous for pushing the third army through Europe so fast that he outran his supply lines. And it worked brilliantly. And there were several times when he wanted to do the same thing and was stopped by more timid generals, and history has shown that Patton was probably right to want to be more aggressive.

Plus… we are all really guessing here, because we don’t know the war plan. All we know is the snippets of the war that we see on CNN.

For example, there’s pretty much a total news blackout in Western Iraq, because the operations there are mostly special ops, apparently. But we know that Jordan has been allowing use of its airspace, and reports are that there are helicopters flying out of there. We don’t know what’s going on there. We don’t know what’s going on inside Baghdad as we speak - clearly there are a LOT of special forces there right now. We have little knowledge of what’s going on in the North. And we don’t know what the coalition’s plan for the future looks like.

And that flank may not be as vulnerable as it looks - Iraqis attacked it today by surprise in a sandstorm. The result - no American casualties, and 150-500 dead Iraqis.

There will be plenty of time after the war to criticize or praise the war plan, and we’ll have all the information we need to do it… For now, it’s lots of fun to speculate on what might be going right/wrong, but let’s not get too carried away with drawing conclusions.

Carried away? On the SDMB? Shirley you jest…