Posted on 06/04/2004 12:12:40 PM PDT by TexKat
UNITED NATIONS - The United States and Britain revised their Security Council resolution on transferring sovereignty to Iraq on Friday, giving the country's new interim government authority to order the U.S.-led multinational force to leave at any time.
The previous draft introduced Tuesday declared the council's readiness to terminate the force's mandate by January 2006 or at the request of the transitional government formed after elections held by Jan. 31, 2005.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that the incoming government wants the multinational force to stay to prevent civil war, and he told The Associated Press on Friday that he could not foresee its departure before power is transferred to the transitional government early next year.
The revised draft circulated to Security Council members includes what Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have stated publicly — that American and British troops will leave if asked.
It declares that the council will terminate the mandate for the multinational force after elections held by Dec. 31, 2005, or earlier "if requested by the sovereign government of Iraq."
In light of growing contrary reports, it would be a good idea if a commander went on record to specifically confirm that.
It appears that the ceasefire order was not objectionable enough to cause resignations. I’m sure it would have to be many times worse for that to occur.
Works fine for me.
You’re not processing anything I’m saying, just digging in your heels.
Don’t take my word for how civilian authority over the military can be abused. Just read the last paragraph of gandalftb’s post #80. He’s on your side, doesn’t believe it happened. He has a son there. But he recognizes what constitutes inappropriate civilian interference. I’ve discussed this with you but you ignore it and start repeating yourself. Listen to him if not to me.
Players at that level keep that kind of leadership jousting pretty quiet. I agree, the Falluja choices were not objectionable enough to get into a potentially publicized pushing match between commanders.
I agree that we shouldn’t expect to hear Marine generals complaining in this case if they were overridden. Especially if the positive outcome reports hold true.
On the other hand, if they actually bought into the argument to halt the attack, rather than simply complied with its imposition, I don’t know why they wouldn’t profess their support. Especially in light of contrary reports.
You make a good point, Marine support of the cease-fire was of the grumble-grumble variety. That may be partly due to their resentment of even comment on their offensive from CentCom. Marines rightfully think they know best when the shootin' starts.
Probably a lot of grey area in this. I think the outcome is so unique that people will eventually talk, and we’ll be able to pin down the shade.
Always good to hear your thoughts…
What "growing contrary reports"? As someone who values legitimate, attributable sources you seem to demonstrate some inconsistancy here. In my mind, the obscure source noted in this thread and the lead foreign affairs correspondant for USA Today does not outweigh George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Gen Myers, Gen Sanchez, Kimmit, Conway, Mattis.... Either they are all lying, or the reporter from USA Today has his facts wrong.
Don't count on further clarification on this issue from DoD sources. The Generals in charge know what led to their decisions. They are comfortable with the process, and the wisdom of their decisions is becoming evident. If "civilians" in Washington or Baghdad dictated this policy, you can be absolutely certain they will start taking credit for it. So far, the silence is deafening.
Succinctly put and absolutely dead on correct.
no one, not even the President will veto military tactics, during battle, chosen by the CIC on site.
Again, dead on correct. This seems to be the point that some have difficulty understanding.
They never addressed whose decision it was to not invade, just vague platitudes about empowering the military to make decisions, or specific claims about who created the Fallujah Brigade or ordered its activation as a plan B. The only specific reports on the record support the claim that not attacking was a political, not a military decision.
The best evidence to the contrary to date is from gandalftb who reports from his son that he believes that the Marine commanders reluctantly chose to give into pressure from Centcom and Bremer. That may or may not be accurate, depending upon his son’s understanding. No disrespect intended to gandalftb, but that’s no more credible than “Who dat?” #10 post above. They balance out.
I’ve asked dozens of people to show me a specific on the record statement that contradicts USA Today’s Jim Michaels report. He may be wrong. Feel free to be the first to find a contradiction. That’s how debates based on reason work. You find something, I find something, soon we begin to agree. But don’t misrepresent the disagreement by saying the people in your list above have made specific contradictory claims.
"A pause in offensive operations doesn't mean Marines can't act proactively to deal with immediate threats, Marine Maj. Gen. John Sattler, CENTCOM's operations director, said in a telephone briefing from CENTCOM's forward headquarters in Doha with reporters in the Pentagon.
He said the Marines in the area have not been "hamstrung or hampered in any way, shape or form" by their rules of engagement and don't have to wait until fired upon to take action, as has been reported in some media outlets.
He noted that he feels it's important to give the negotiations a chance to succeed. "Keep in mind, our goal is not to capture the town of Fallujah," Sattler said. "Our goal is to go and free the town of Fallujah, to go in and eliminate those fighters, foreign fighters, those extremists that are in the town that have taken it away from those who reside there." 16 April 2004
So did the Marines have their hands tied, or is this Marine 2 star lying?
"Many officials say Bush is determined not to back down in Fallujah, convinced that if the insurgents hold off U.S. forces there, they will try to do the same in other Iraqi cities.
"The stakes are too high for us to leave," Bush said Friday night at a campaign event in Florida. "This is an historic moment. You see, a free society will be a peaceful society. A free society in the heart of the Middle East will begin to change the world for the better. No, they're trying to shake our will, but America will never be run out of Iraq by a bunch of thugs and killers." NYT Apr 25
So was Bush campaigning for a Marine withdrawal from Fallujah, or is he lying here.
"Together, the latest approaches to dealing with Fallujah and Najaf represent a new effort by the U.S. military and civilian leadership in Iraq to avoid the sort of violent confrontations that occurred earlier this month, when Marines fought running battles in Fallujah and Sadr's militiamen skirmished with soldiers in Baghdad and across central Iraq.
"This is the way we want to do it," Mattis said. "We didn't come here to fight."Washington Post Apr 26
Is Mattis just parroting the will of his civilian leadership, or is the General who created the "No better friend, No worse enemy" slogan following his own philosophy.
"If at some point the military decides that the string has run out, then they will tell us that and take appropriate action," Rumsfeld said. "At the present time, I think it's accurate to say that their conclusion is that they see sufficient prospects that it leads them to believe that this is a useful thing to be doing." 27 Apr
Is Rumsfeld lying here, or is he letting military commanders make the final decisions.
"But, to answer your question directly, the Marines still believe that the talks have promise. They are still looking for a political, peaceful solution. None of the Marines, especially the commanders, are anxious about having to have their Marines cross the line of departure and go on an offensive. And if this can be solved by not putting our soldiers' lives at risk -- our Marines' lives at risk, so much the better." Kimmit 28 Apr
Is Kimmit just making this stuff up about the Marine Commanders?
"The Marines on the ground are the ones that are making those judgments, and thus far they’ve calculated that it’s in our interest to do it the way they’re doing it and to have these discussions with the Sunni tribal leaders." Rumsfeld, 29 Apr
Again, is Rumsfeld lying here?
MATTHEWS: Okay. What is the White House role? The Washington Post reported today the White House is so concerned about the political – I mean, grandly political – sensitivity about the issue of Fallujah that they’re involved in calling the shots over there.
RUMSFELD: The president has said to me, that’s up to the combatant commanders and you. You figure it out." 29 Apr
More Rumsfeld lies???
"It is not clear whether Conway conveyed the terms of the deal to his superiors in Baghdad and at the Pentagon, or even to leaders of the U.S. occupation authority. One person familiar with the deal said it took senior U.S. military and civilian officials in Baghdad by surprise. Because of the apparent lack of consultation, some officials said elements of the agreement, particularly the speedy troop withdrawal, may be tempered by the Pentagon or by the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of operations in Iraq." Washington Post apr 30
So nobody knew who these folks were but the Marines, yet this decision was dictated by someone beside the Marine Corps?
"But I think it's very important to understand a number of things. Number one, the Marines are not withdrawing from Fallujah. These forces will be working alongside the Marines. These forces, when they come to fruition, will be answering to the Marines as well as the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. So this is just an Iraqi component of the coalition forces surrounding Fallujah. It is only happening in certain portions of the cordon. And the initial reports that we are getting would indicate that this repositioning of the Marines to allow these forces to come in is going well.
With regards to the selection of the general who will be answering to General Conway, I understand -- I don't know his background. I would refer you to the Marines on that. I know that he has been carefully chosen, has been initially vetted. General Conway and General Mattis have expressed confidence -- initial confidence in him, and we'll see where this proceeds." Kimmit 30 Apr CPA
So Kimmit wrongly says there will be no Marine withdrawal, and refers questions concerning Selah to Conway. Yet this was a Coalition dictated plan???
Q General Abizaid, this is Bob Burns from Associated Press. I'd like to follow that up. Can you confirm that the Iraqi who is going to be developing or leading this force is named Saleh, Jassim Mohammed Saleh? And can you tell us about his background?
GEN. ABIZAID: Well, I have seen several reports from the Marines and from General Sanchez. I think that I would defer the question to personalities and to their background to the people in the field because I don't know the person and I can't say for certain that the person that you have named will be a commander, a staff officer, a liaison officer.
But clearly -- you know, give me another question that doesn't have to do with the details of Fallujah, because I think you need to go to Baghdad for the details. If you could ask me broader questions, I'd appreciate that. Why don't you give me another question." Gen Abizaid, 30 Apr
Abizaid can't even answer questions concerning the formation of the Fallujah Brigade, but it was a CPA plan???
"The decision to turn to former Iraqi army generals to help regain control of Fallujah, for instance, took place under confusing circumstances, with military officials in Iraq announcing terms that officials in Washington had yet to review."Washington Post May 1
Washington hadn't even reviewed the plan, but somehow managed to force it on the Marines???
Yet somehow a single USA Today reporter is enough to convince you the Fallujah Brigade and Marine withdrawal from Fallujah was forced on the Marine Corps from the CPA or Washington. I just don't get it.
I agree, this will eventually come out in an after-action report. It may take a year for this experiment to work to look back and analyze the merits of all these decisions. Interestingly, history has almost always been kind to Marines.
BTW, this is exactly what my MARINE COUSIN told me was going to happen---that the very last option was to go into the city and have a big bloody battle. And, last I looked, the Marines had identified 28 baddies they needed to kill or capture . . .and have now killed or captured 27 of them. I'd call that effective.
Good post, that took some work! A good wrap to the debate.
"So all in all it sounds like a misrepresentation of the facts to say the Marines made a military decision in this instance, at the very least."
Try this. The administration sets a policy that addresses long term and short term goals. The higher-ups in the marines make a decision that the best way to achieve the long term and the short term goals is to pull back and let the Iraqi forces handle it, while the marines stay close by in case they are needed. That may not please all of the marines close by to the situation, but it would make the situation very accurate in that the policy may have been set by the administration, but it allowed lea-way to the brass to do what they thought was best and the brass thought the best way to achieve the goals was to pull back.
I do not doubt that the marines would have handled the situation properly had they been the ones called on to settle the problem.
Okay, you made me work this time... ;^)
Three or four of those quotes are relevant and specific. You shouldn’t have buried them in a dozen others relating to who managed the implementation of the Fallujah brigade. I’ve told you several times that that’s not in dispute.
- Rumsfeld’s denial of the accusation that the White House was “calling the shots” seems blanket enough for it to apply to the decision to halt the attack. But it doesn’t speak to Rumsfeld’s involvement, (which is indicated in a story below.)
- Kimmitt’s quote is evidence that Centcom supports the ceasefire, but his comments about Marine commanders are too vague to draw the same conclusion about them. Going back to the source, the context of that snip describing Marine reluctance to attack Fallujah was Kimmitt trying to convince world press that we were not brutal aggressors, just responding to insurgent attacks.
- Mattis’s quote is the first indication that I’ve seen of any Marine buy in to anything other than a full assault. But, I see the context was of setting up joint US Iraqi patrols with air support. It was just before Bush conferred with commanders and announced there would be no full assault. And that was just before the implementing the Fallujah Brigade. Nevertheless, it’s some kind of indication that he bought into those engagement rules at the time.
- Sattle’s comments regarding there being no rule of engagement restrictions are puzzling. There was a ceasefire in place prior to that statement on April 16. I see this April 11 BBC report of a ceasefire, " US civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said the ceasefire came at the request of members of the Iraqi Governing Council.
Does General Sattle consider a protracted loose ceasefire to not be a restrictions on rules of engagement?
There’s this quote from A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and paratrooper, W. Thomas Smith Jr. writing for National Review:
" By Friday, April 9, Ambassador Paul Bremer ordered the suspension of offensive operations by the Marines in-and-around Fallujah. The ceasefire, which officially began on Saturday, is a chance for cooler heads among the rebel forces to prevail. "How can Bremer “order” something that General Sattle in Centcom doesn’t know exists? Googling “Bremer ordered” yields mostly stories of him ordering US troops to close Sadar’s paper, so the perception is that he has the power to “order” our military.
- Here’s another quote from an April 10 AP story indicating that there were some engagement restrictions, even if General Sattle at Centcom was unaware of them.
"The heavy fighting in Fallujah… threatens to divide the Iraqi Governing Council and the US administration that appointed it.This April 9 NYT report says that Bremer “ordered” the offensive pause.Marines agreed only grudgingly to a halt in fighting. After initially being ordered to cease all offensive operations, they quickly demanded and received permission to launch assaults to prevent attacks if needed.
"We said to them [the commanders]: 'We are going to lose people if we don't go back on offensive ops'. So we got the word," Marine Major Pete Farnun told The Associated Press."
" The ceasefire lowered at least briefly the gathering drumbeat of warfare across central and southern areas of Iraq that has created the worst crisis of the U.S. occupation. But insurgents from both the Sunni and Shiite communities continued sporadic but widespread attacks, including an ambush of fuel trucks on a highway near Fallujah, just as the ceasefire began, in which one U.S. soldier was killed and two were reported missing. And at least one Marine died in Fallujah after U.S. commanders declared the ceasefire. U.S. officials said the pause was ordered by L. Paul Bremer, the American who heads the occupation authority, "to give a political track an opportunity to reduce the violence" and to allow Fallujah residents to bury scores of dead and meet with Iraqi intermediaries. "Here’s an April 29 LA Times story saying IMEF was “ordered” to halt attacks by Bremer and Sanchez.
"It is the sense of Fallujah’s importance to larger U.S. interests in Iraq and beyond, Pentagon and Bush administration officials said, that has caused delays in a planned full-scale assault - which at one point was set to begin last Sunday.This April 15 Washington Times story speaks Governing Council pressures on “Sanchez’s” decision.By delaying the attack, U.S. planners have hoped to show the Iraqi population, the Muslim world and the American public that Washington has done everything possible to avoid a bloody assault on the city.
At this point, however, almost no U.S. officials expect the talks now going on between insurgents and local leaders in Fallujah to succeed.
Nevertheless, L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator overseeing Iraq, and the top commander on the ground, U.S. Army Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, have at least once ordered the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to postpone the scheduled attack, with the approval of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, defense officials said.
One senior official described the delay as part of “a whole developing public diplomacy, information operations campaign” designed to reduce negative reactions to a final assault.
Accordingly, U.S. officials have sought to focus attention on the insurgents’ violations of the cease-fire. And they have described the response by American forces as purely defensive and retaliatory"
"Iraqi politicians are playing a growing role in blocking U.S. commanders from unleashing fatal force on insurgents.All that you and I have posted fit together neatly (except for Sattle’s statement). And in light of all this I’ll change part of my opinion. I appears that Bremer and Sanchez did order I MEF to halt the attack, but in response to pressure from Iraqi politicians, not Washington (possibly excluding Rumsfeld). And in light of your quotes, It also appears that at some time, there was some kind buy in to one version of the offensive engagement restrictions (joint patrols with air support) by top Marine commanders.In the most glaring example, Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, insisted to American Administrator L. Paul Bremer that Marines cease their attacks on insurgents in Fallujah so he could initiate talks. (none)
"We consider the action carried out by U.S. forces as illegal and totally unacceptable," Mr. Pachachi told the United Arab Emirates-based Al Arabiya satellite channel at a time when Marines were in hot pursuit of criminals and terrorists inside the Sunni-run city west of Baghdad.
Mr. Pachachi joined other council members Friday in scolding Mr. Bremer for not consulting them before Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. commander in Iraq, ordered counterattacks in Fallujah and in southern Iraq, where firebrand cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr is inciting violence.
The protests resulted in orders to end the Marine assault after forces had killed more than 400 Sunni holdouts and foreign "jihadists" who have come to Iraq to kill Americans and their allies. The Marine operation was triggered by the April 4 killing and mutilation in Fallujah of four former U.S. commandos who worked as a security detail.
The political pressure continued yesterday, as another council member, Shi'ite Ahmad Chalabi, warned the United States not to move against Sheik al-Sadr's militia in the holy city of Najaf for fear of enraging Muslims around the world.
"Najaf must not be touched," Mr. Chalabi, a staunch American ally, told Reuters news service. "The Governing Council is a political body that has no military experience," said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, a military analyst. "They can certainly advise Paul Bremer and the U.S. administration on the political circumstances. But they dare not tell us how to put the life and limb of Americans who are there to bring freedom into jeopardy. I'm concerned these people will do just that if we're not careful."
Added a defense source at the Pentagon, "Kind of hard to imagine what Gen. Sanchez was thinking when he ordered the Marines to cease fire when they were killing the enemy — all because the Iraqi leadership isn't able to control the terrorists. Aren't we supposed to be freeing the Iraqis from terror?" "
I don’t know how much authority Bremer has over Centcom operations. The word “ordered” is frequently used, but it looks at least like they eventually bought in. I think evidence is now overwhelming that it was not a Marne decision and little evidence that it was Marine supported.
If I’m missing something let me know. (Maybe without the misplaced condescension this time.)
yo..elfman..
Your position seems much like that of the Democrats with regard to anything Bush does. They have taken the strategy that whatever he does they must find a way to tear it down. If he were find the cure for cancer they would say that it wasn't quick enough. If he were to win the war on terror they would say it cost too much..OR, that he really didn't win it. In other words, reason, common sense or even facts, mean nothing.
You can also witness the same with the attacks on Reagan's legacy today by the seditious, traitorous scum that clutter the airwaves and the print media. (relax, don't get alarmed now, I'm not putting you in THAT category)
So, for whatever reason, you have a theory or an agenda that you are going to stick by to the death, despite ANY information to the contrary. Fine, just call it that and let it be that.
Here's your new tag line, "that's my story and I'm sticking to it".
I know, yer mad now and you don't want me to talk to you anymore so...bye :)
But elf or other "critics" who "know" what is happening behind the scenes won't be convinced by what the actual participants have to say.
I’ve said only one thing from the beginning - that the field commanders were forbidden from defeating the Fallujahn insurgents for short sighted political reasons. There’s evidence of positive outcomes (so far), but absolutely zero reason to believe that it was a field commander decision, at least not below the Centcom level.. Now I’ve posted a half dozen more sources to confirm it. Feel free to find “any information” to the contrary.
For what your other concern is worth, feel free to find anything besides this that I’ve criticized Bush for. I’ve said I’m still voting for him. but I don’t care for group-think, it’s a mind killer.
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