# Yet More Evidence That the Invasion of Iraq Was Poorly Planned **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 6, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394 "2003-12-06T16:59:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/1 "2003-12-06T16:59:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*[Army Will Face Dip in Readiness\*\*](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40059-2003Dec5?language=printer) > \*4 Divisions Need to Regroup After Iraq > By Vernon Loeb > Washington Post Staff Writer > Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A01 > Four Army divisions – 40 percent of the active-duty force – will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation with relatively few ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere, a senior Army official said yesterday > > While the Army had been using 120 days as its standard for “resetting” divisions returning from overseas deployments, overhauling the divisions returning from Iraq could take as long as 180 days because of the extreme weather in Iraq and the unprecedented magnitude of the planned troop rotation. > > Once those divisions return from Iraq, Army readiness will be at its lowest point since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Since then, Army officials have tried to keep divisions at the highest, C-1 readiness level. > > This dip in readiness could have political consequences for President Bush, who sharply criticized the Clinton administration during the 2000 campaign for allowing two Army divisions to fall to the lowest readiness category in 1999 because of peacekeeping obligations in the Balkans. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/2 "2003-12-06T19:50:04Z")
I’ve used this cite before, but it backs up the above, so I’ll repost it here. It’s the CBO estimate of what would be needed to maintain troops at or near current levels past March 2004. That date is significant because it represents one year after the start of the conflict, and policy is to rotate troops out of a war zone after one year. Basically, it involves a huge amount of juggling, and shows as well that the logistical problem of keeping a large country under indefinite occupation by mainly US forces (because of our rejection of the UN, of course) was never completely thought through: [http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4515&sequence=0](http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4515&sequence=0) ---
**Author:** ![MrTuffPaws](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@MrTuffPaws](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrTuffPaws)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/3 "2003-12-06T21:03:34Z")
China and Taiwan know too. ---
**Author:** ![crawf54](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e7dd6/32.png) [@crawf54](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crawf54)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/4 "2003-12-06T22:09:59Z")
The British army is getting a trifle overstretched ,we have the permament irish terrorist/organised crime problem etc etc we are used to winning conflicts ,we have won two "vietnams "Malaya and the borneo confrontation plus Oman but when when we fight with Americans lately it all seems to go tits up ref iraq. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/5 "2003-12-06T22:28:39Z")
Am I the only one who reads the article in the OP, then finds dark irony in this quote? > [@](#): > > “If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’” > – Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, Aug. 3, 2000 Of course, Bush was [lying](http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/08/07/lie_week/index.html) when he said that, but the irony remains. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/6 "2003-12-06T22:44:33Z")
hell I’ve been noticing and worrying about the long and frequent deployments of the National Guard, myself. you know, those folks where the ads for recruitment say “1 weekend a month and two weeks a year”? yet they’re being deployed overseas for months? National Guard troops have regular jobs here, their employers (in the past anyhow) were probably pleased to hire them, don’t know if they are now or will be in the future (um, boss, I need the next 8 months off); ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/7 "2003-12-06T23:32:50Z")
Someone’s going sue over those ads if they keep showing them! ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/8 "2003-12-06T23:41:39Z")
The invasion was planned just fine. It’s the occupation that’s causing so many problems. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/9 "2003-12-06T23:45:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\* > yet they’re being deployed overseas for months? > (um, boss, I need the next 8 months off); \*\* I thought we’d switched to full year deployments. IIRC, they have to show up and get ready somewhere for a while, yet their deployment time doesn’t begin until they arrive wherever they’re headed. So a deployment of a year can actuallly mean that they’re away from their regular lives for longer than a year. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/10 "2003-12-06T23:58:29Z")
( **Simon** - I picked the number ‘8 months’ 'cause I remembered seeing a newstory about a deployment and thinking damn that’s a long time, but being too lazy to look up the real number - it may indeed have been 12 months or more. I just didn’t want to post something like 12 months + and have some neo con come in and demand proof that it was that long and having to say “ok, ok, so it’s only 11.5 months, so sue me” 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/11 "2003-12-06T23:58:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\*hell I’ve been noticing and worrying about the long and frequent deployments of the National Guard, myself. you know, those folks where the ads for recruitment say “1 weekend a month and two weeks a year”? yet they’re being deployed overseas for months? > > National Guard troops have regular jobs here, their employers (in the past anyhow) were probably pleased to hire them, don’t know if they are now or will be in the future (um, boss, I need the next 8 months off); \*\* Yeah, that’s a pretty big bone of contention for a lot of people. Not everyone is as happy as I am to be activated for long periods of time. With some of us, like me, we know that we’re going away for long deployments a good bit, and even when we’re not deployed we have to do a lot more than one weekend a month, two weeks a year. Hell, I have to fly almost weekly to maintain my currency requirements, even when I’m not activated. But they sell it that way, and a lot of people feel like they were misled. After the 9/11 patriotic bravado wears off, I wonder how this will affect retention. Methinks that the Guard and Reserve components will be in the hurt locker in about five years. Out of the fifteen or so people that came into my section last year I am the only one who is definitely planning to stay, and at least ten of them have said that they’re doing their six years and getting out. That’s good news and bad news. The good news: no competition for promotions (if I stay with the Guard I’ll be a Tech Sergeant by 2007, Master by 2010 so long as I don’t screw up). The bad news: I get deployed longer and more often. Not that that’s really a bad thing, mind you, but it plays hell with family stuff. Time will tell, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/12 "2003-12-07T00:05:42Z")
**Airman** the future for recruitment is exactly what I was concerned about. To me, the NG is **vital** , it allows us to keep available a fairly large force, w/o having to be concerned about actually **having** a fairly large force unless it’s needed. plus, they aren quite frequently called out for natural disasters at home, where, once again, their service is absolutely necessary for **all of us**. what I see is a frightening waste of some of our more precious and necessary resources, that may indeed negatively impact our status for years to come. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/13 "2003-12-07T00:28:50Z")
What **wring** said. ---
**Author:** ![county](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@county](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/county)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/14 "2003-12-07T00:52:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MrTuffPaws \* > \*\*China and Taiwan know too. \*\* Well sure, now that it has been blabbed all over the place! ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/15 "2003-12-07T02:38:43Z")
**wring** , When things started, it _was_ for 6 mos tours. Then, when it became apparent that we were gonna have too many people over there for too long, we had to switch to 12 month deployments. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/16 "2003-12-07T03:16:02Z")
The gig has pretty much changed to “12 months boots on the ground”, which is pissing some reservists and their families off, so the whole rotation ends up being longer than a year from the moment they report. I’ll dig up a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/17 "2003-12-08T02:42:25Z")
Today’s NYT had an interesting Op-Ed piece: [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/opinion/07TRUS.html?pagewanted=2](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/opinion/07TRUS.html?pagewanted=2) > [@](#): > > But from the first day they arrived in Mosul, Bravo Company and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division were saddled with dozens of other missions, all of them distinctly nonmilitary, and most of them made necessary by the failure of civilian leaders in Washington and Baghdad to prepare for the occupation of Iraq. > > The 101st entered Mosul on April 22 to find the city’s businesses, civil ministries and utilities looted and its people rioting in the streets. By May 5, the soldiers had supervised elections for mayor and city council. On May 11, they oversaw the signing of harvest accords and the division of wheat profits among the region’s frequently warring factions of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians. On May 14, a company commander of Alpha Company, Third Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st re-opened the Syrian border for trade, and by May 18, soldiers had largely restored the flow of automobile gas and cooking propane, shortages of which had been causing riots… > > The Coalition Provisional Authority nominally has the job of “rebuilding” Iraq using $20 billion or so of the $78 billion that recently flew out of America’s deficit-plagued coffers. But during the time the 101st has been in Mosul, three regional coalition authority directors have come and gone. …according to the division leadership, not a nickel of the $20 billion controlled by the provisional authority has reached them. From the preceding I make 2 conclusions. 1. The GWB administration did a piss-poor job of planning the endgame. 2. We have some smart, flexible soldiers on the ground in Iraq. 3. GWB has basically made all the mistakes and taken the credit for a superior military inherited from the previous administration. Think about how difficult it must have been to scale down the Cold-War military, yet still maintain top quality troops (see above) while building high-tech equipment (JDAMS, UAVs, battlefield communications gear, etc.) for the next century’s battles. Yet that is what Bill Clinton did, all while reducing the share of military spending in the US economy by about 1/2. Remarkable. It shows the benefits of solid fact-based policy analysis. As Dick Cheney put it in 2000, “A commander in chief leads the military built by those who came before him. There is little that he or his defense secretary can do to improve the force they have to deploy. It is all the work of previous administrations… And when that war [Gulf War I] ended, the first thing I did was to place a call to California, and say thank you to President Ronald Reagan”. An honorable man and an honorable party would grant the same courtesy to William Jefferson Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/18 "2003-12-08T03:00:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flowbark \* > \*\* > > 1. The GWB administration did a piss-poor job of planning the endgame. > \*\* To be fair, there actually was quite abit of planning on the part of the State Dept. This extensive planning was discarded, (til recently), in favor of the “We’ll be greeted with hugs and flowers” planning. IIRC, the CIA, the DIA and the State Dept all provided ample warnings and info about things that certain prominent members of the Admin said couldn’t’ve been anticipated. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flowbark \* > \*\* > 3) GWB has basically made all the mistakes and taken the credit for a superior military inherited from the previous administration. > \*\* To be fair, even though these things are his responsibility he had lots of help. He didn’t make all of these mistakes himself. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-more-evidence-that-the-invasion-of-iraq-was-poorly-planned/217394/19 "2003-12-08T07:42:40Z")
**SimonX** : Quite correct. Furthermore, [even the Iraqi exiles](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6091EFF385E0C738FDDA80994DB404482) warned of the need for a large troop presence to curb looting. I also seem to recall experts in post-conflict management making the same point. Broadly speaking, I suppose President W, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz and presumably Dick Cheney all made the wrong call, while [General Shinseki](http://www.iht.com/articles/97917.html), various regional specialists and the Joint Chiefs of Staff proved to have superior judgement. It is better to support the planners than engage in wishful thinking. I’ve given this quote before, but I believe it is relevant here:[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.marshall.html](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.marshall.html) > [@](#): > > One Pentagon civil servant specializing in Middle East policy described to me how, a few months after 9/11, he was chastised by a superior, a political appointee, for delivering a negative assessment of a proposed policy in a briefing memo to the Secretary of Defense. The civil servant changed his assessment as instructed but still included a list of potential pros and cons. But that wasn’t good enough either. The senior official told him, “‘It’s still not acceptable. Take out all the discussion of the cons and basically write there’s no reason why we shouldn’t [do this].’ I just thought this was intellectually dishonest.”… > The Pentagon civil servant quoted above told me that the standard response to warnings from the Joint Staff about potential difficulties was simply to say: “That’s just the Joint Staff being obstructionist.” The order came down: cook the evidence to support our pre-determined conclusions. Conflicting points of view were consciously supressed in the rush to war.