My recollection was that Gen. Shinsecki (sp?) was fired because he was urging 350,000 troops. That is why I called my son for his opinion since he had fought there in 1991. The main problem that Bush/Cheney had was that they needed to fight in the spring (started in March) to get the job done because the summer heat really made it impossible, especially if they thought that protective gear would need to be worn for poison gas. A lot of people don’t realize that summer heat of 110 to 115 degrees is not uncommon. Waiting until fall/winter to build up the much large force would have put the war too close to the next elections, so they had to do it in the spring with inadequate forces if they were going to do it at all. Personally, I think they just should have stuck to doing a more complete job in Afghanistan, where my son also did 2 tours.
If I ever go quail hunting I’ll remember your advice. ;-)
This is from Wikipedia - but it coincides with my recollection. It was the occupation forces that were in dispute, although the argument game during the planning of the invasion (which, of course, is when it should occur).
“Shinseki publicly clashed with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the planning of the war in Iraq over how many troops the United States would need to keep in Iraq for the postwar occupation of that country. As Army Chief of Staff, General Shinseki testified to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for postwar Iraq. This was an estimate far higher than the figure being proposed by Secretary Rumsfeld in his invasion plan, and it was rejected in strong language by both Rumsfeld and his Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who was another chief planner of the invasion and occupation.[15] From then on, Shinseki’s influence on the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly waned.[16] Critics of the Bush Administration alleged that Shinseki was forced into early retirement as Army Chief of Staff because of his comments on troop levels; however, his retirement was announced nearly a year before those comments.[17]
“When the insurgency took hold in postwar Iraq, Shinseki’s comments and their public rejection by the civilian leadership were often cited by those who felt the Bush administration deployed too few troops to Iraq.[18] On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid said that General Shinseki had been correct that more troops were needed.[18]”
“Personally, I think they just should have stuck to doing a more complete job in Afghanistan, where my son also did 2 tours.”
Part of the problem is we tend to be rather reactive in dealing with Islamists and do a half-baked job of fighting them, mostly militarily. And, at times we build alliances with them.
They are so many different factions of them throughout the M.E. and in fact the world, all alphabet soup. We try to differentiate by calling them ‘moderates’, ‘rebels’, ‘extremists’, ‘shi’ites’, ‘sunnis’, ‘pro-west’, ‘anti-west’, etc.. etc..
The Monghols destroyed the Caliphate in Iraq, yet some Monghols actually converted to Islam, Islam spread, expanded its territory and the ideology remains to date. Islamists were driven out of Spain too, though same deal. Then we try to understand the difference between PAESH, AQ, DAESH, Al-Nusra, ISIS, ISIL ........ (I made up the first one).
We get happy ISIS is out of Kobane and is apparently pushed back currently in Iraq, yet the Islamic ideology remains and actually nothing much has changed - it’s a band-aid approach. They’ll bid their time, re-group and eventually re-surface.
How do you fight such a potent (active) ideology, which has over 1.5 billion adherents (spread across east & west), for which Islam is not only an ideology, but also very much a religion (a belief system)?