Posted on 11/25/2008 10:47:09 AM PST by Jbny
Reading former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s op-ed in the New York Times the other day reminded me of John Kennedy’s aphorism that success has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. In this case, Rumsfeld is attempting to claim paternity for the so-called surge and the success we’ve witnessed in Iraq during the last 22 months. The problem is that the reality is at odds with what he is now claiming.
It is not that some of the specific claims Secretary Rumsfeld makes in his op-ed aren’t accurate. He is right, for example, about the progress we were making against al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in late 2006. It’s true as well that Secretary Rumsfeld, late in the day, did support the surge.
The real fault with the piece, in my judgment, is that what Rumsfeld writes is selective and misleading. By that I mean that the causal reader would come away from his op-ed believing that Rumsfeld handed over to General David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and Secretary Robert Gates a nation, Iraq, in which all the pieces had been put in place and that we were on the verge of a successful tipping point.
In fact, thanks in large measure to the policies pursued by Rumsfeld, Iraq was, in the latter half of 2006, in a death spiral. Violence, chaos, and a low-grade civil war were engulfing it. The insurgency and Shia militias were gaining strength. Sectarian divisions were deepening. Millions of Iraqis had fled the country. The economy was in shambles. In the words of the Iraq Study Group Report, “[t]he situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.” Reports are that General Casey himself privately acknowledged that Baghdad was “sliding toward chaos.” Many people believed Iraq was so wrecked it was beyond recovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
And so, at THAT specific time (when Rumsfiled was being replaced), what solution(s) did Peter Wehner SPECIFICALLY propose?
What is HIS prejudices and HIS position on the Iraq war?
This is the reality of what was taking place on the ground within Iraq (when Rumsfeld left). The successes of the hard fighting (along with FID OPs) in 05/06 is what allowed for the "surge" to be successful. It was during 05/06, in which shooters OP tempo's were through the roof, is when AQ in Iraq was defeated, gutted. This left a void / vacuum which needed to be filled - The "surge" was timed perfectly to fill this void.
The timing of the "surge" was excellent (having a CinC such as GWB, with the stones to push for it and put it in place was a paramount) but the surge was only as successful as it has been because of what took place prior to it. This is what most will never understand.
Sorry Mr. Weiner, but it is Rumsfeld who tasked Petraeus to develop the counterinsurgency known as the surge, not Gates or McCain or Obama.
Send Rumsfeld to Chattahoocie with the rest of em.
History repeats itself.
Gen Petreaus is what General Montgomery was to the British in North Africa. But what is often not remembered is that the groundwork of the defensive stand at el-Alamein and the subsequent offensive (splendidly carried out by Monty) had already been put in place by the work of Generals Auchinleck and Alexander.
It is a mixed bag. Rumsfeld’s record apart from Iraq is stellar. His reorganization of the army to the brigade system, moving our bases foward, and general philosophy on mobility over power were all needed to keep our army modern.
However, he failed in a big way with Iraq by being the biggest proponent of troop levels that were simply too low. In a way, this helped pave the way for the success we see today by letting violence consume Iraq and letting the Sunni’s and Shiite’s see that they needed more American help and that violence was not the way. This led to the Sunni awakening which the surge abetted.
But in another, probably more accurate way, Rumsfeld’s insistence on low level of troops to begin with and continuing through to ‘06 was clearly a bad decision to begin with.
Let’s not forget it was Rumsfeld who caused the Republican party to be where it is today. Abu Gharib started the slide and his continued mismanaged sealed the deal for Republicans in 2006 and into the future.
The only critique about Rumsfeld and his clique is they came from corporate America who is enthralled with digital technology. They thought that one can fight war with just in time info, just in time logistics and one man can replace ten men. War is still an industrial age process, meaning numbers, reserve stockpiles, production base and Murphy’s law still exists despite computers, networking and high tech systems. I think Rummie and his successors finally got it, and started to listen to the generals and not seeing them as obstacles to modernity. Unfortunately the conversion took time and GWB took the political hits for it.
I have great respect for Rumsfeld but he stayed just a little too long. Conversely, I have no respect for the NYT and the quislings that infest it. Anybody got a link to the editorial Rumsfeld wrote?
[My own position is that the problems stated already before the invasion when it appears that neither Cheney nor Rumsfeldt wanted a long occupation, but when it was decided that this would be the policy, the means (among those an Iraqi Force of Liberation) was denied the Pentagon thanks to State and the CIA (and Turkey).]
However, contrary to what one may think when reading the article by Peter Wehner Rumsfeldt's piece in NYT was not about Iraq. It was about Afghanistan - a much more acute question than discussions about who did what when, although the answers to those questions may lead to the correct solution to Afghanistan conundrum. Clearly Rumsfeldt's article poses some important questions that ought to be answered on their own merits.
See my post just below yours.
Thank you. Reading it now.
Uncle Sam should have had a big footprint in Iraq from the beginning. Rumsfeld was against it. That’s all that needs to be said about this topic. And I write this as someone who thinks Rumsfeld did a good job - up to the point of the occupation of Iraq. I think we should have established a protectorate in the manner of MacArthur, and not relied on any of our “allies” to help us in Iraq. The compromises needed to bring those “allies” on board resulted in the unnecessary financial costs and war casualties of an prolonged war. What we needed was a nice little campaign along the lines of the war in the Philippines, where most of our losses were from disease. What we got was a grueling campaign of whack-a-mole, with far more battle losses than in the Philippines, despite having space age weaponry, evac capabilities and medical care.
It’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight that troop levels were too low. However, I remember worrying at the beginning of the war that AQ’s and Saddam’s plan was to bait us into concentrating the bulk of our military people in one place, and then detonating a few mukes to wipe them all out in one fell swoop. We know now that they (probably) didn’t have that capability...but we didn’t know it then.
In addition, if our folks had been operating under the right rules of engagement from the beginning, we likely would not have needed the surge. As it was, Bush allowed the lawyers and the state dept. to tie Rumsfeld’s hands — for example, not allowing hot pursuit over the borders in Syria and Iran, pulling out of Fallujah, playing footsie with the UN instead of moving decisively to set up political and civilian infrastructure, etc., etc., etc.
Rumsfeld was scapegoated, pure and simple. And the State Dept. and the UN skated free of blame, as usual.
Do you have any idea how spread out modern troops are? There is no way al Qaeda could take the bulk of our people out with a few nukes. Nukes are mainly good for use against cities and hardened bunkers.
In addition, if our folks had been operating under the right rules of engagement from the beginning, we likely would not have needed the surge. As it was, Bush allowed the lawyers and the state dept. to tie Rumsfeld’s hands — for example, not allowing hot pursuit over the borders in Syria and Iran, pulling out of Fallujah, playing footsie with the UN instead of moving decisively to set up political and civilian infrastructure, etc., etc., etc.
This was necessary to get our "allies" on board. A protectorate structure would have imposed censorship, nighttime curfews and a whole bunch of other things that helped keep the defeated Axis powers down.
Perfectly said, perfectly synopsized.
I tend to agree with you. Granted, I am really underqualified to say whether or not Rumsfeld’s career as the Secretary of Defense was an overall success, but it does seem like he underestimated the amount of ground troops we needed in Iraq from the beginning, and unfortunately, that is a really terrible miscalculation to make...wasn’t that something General Shinseki said from the beginning? It really seems like Shinseki’s career tanked since he disagreed with Rumsfeld on troop levels.
I think Shinseki over-estimated the number of troops needed for the invasion, and Rumsfeld under-estimated the number of troops needed for the occupation, not to mention agitated for a too-rapid handover to the Iraqis. If our goal was limited to a punitive expedition (without hanging around to capture Saddam), the occupation troop levels were fine. If it was to kill Saddam and establish democracy, the occupation troop levels were way low. We also handicapped ourselves by letting the Iraqis make decisions way too early. But this jumping the gun was the result of an excessive concern with making sure that our allies felt comfortable enough to contribute forces. I think we could have saved a lot of money by making this an all-out, all-American effort from the beginning. We would have spent more money at the outset, but the war would have been sharp and short, because the practical considerations of war-fighting, not coalition-building, would have dictated the rules we imposed in Iraq.
If our goal was limited to a punitive expedition, followed by an exit within weeks or months (without hanging around to capture Saddam), the occupation troop levels were fine.
Extremely honest and accurate synopsis of the impact of Rummy. Ultimately, as much as I respect him and think he would have been a great SecDef if 9/11 had not occured, he was a disaster; one which we payed for dearly in 2006 and 2008. He did not serve President Bush very well.
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