Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
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There has been a little on the news here today about an article in the New Yorker which says that Rumsfeld overruled the generals, who, in planning, wanted more troops and in the end wanted more time to wait for the reinforcements that were not able to come through Turkey to arrive in the gulf. IS this a crock, do people think, or is there some truth in it? It wouldn't surprise me either way, really; if generals do get ignored and think that they might get blamed if things aren't peachy as a result, they might leak that information, but on the other hand it could be wishful thinking or malicious gossip or even a planted story.

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Rumsfeld 'wanted cheap war'

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forced his military chiefs to accept his idea that a relatively small, lightly armed force should go to war with Iraq, it is being alleged.

The New Yorker magazine quotes unnamed Pentagon sources as saying that Mr Rumsfeld insisted at least six times before the conflict on the proposed number of troops being reduced.

In an article to be published on Monday, the magazine says Mr Rumsfeld overruled advice from the war commander, General Tommy Franks, to delay the invasion of Iraq.

The defence secretary has flatly denied overriding military commanders.

"You will find, if you ask anyone who has been involved in the process in the central command, that every single thing that they have requested has, in fact, happened," he said on the US television network, Fox News.

'Abrasive character'

The BBC's correspondent in Washington, Justin Webb, says Mr Rumsfeld is a famously abrasive character who has been accused in the past of bullying his generals.

Our correspondent says these fresh allegations are likely to cause a political storm and lead to further difficulties for the defence secretary and his team.

The article quotes a former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.

But Mr Rumsfeld says the US has "no plans for pauses or cease-fires".

The article says the army is running out of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs, and that there are maintenance problems with tanks.

"The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the official told the magazine.

A senior Pentagon planner said Mr Rumsfeld wanted to "do war on the cheap" and thought precision bombing would bring victory.

"He thought he knew better [than military officials]. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the unnamed planner said.

Franks 'overruled'

The article says General Franks wanted to delay the invasion until the American troops denied access to Turkey had been brought to Kuwait, but Mr Rumsfeld overruled him.

It says the defence secretary also rejected recommendations to deploy four or more army divisions and to ship hundreds of tanks and other heavy vehicles in advance.

Instead, Mr Rumsfeld preferred to rely on equipment which was already in Kuwait, but was insufficient, the magazine says.

Our correspondent says Mr Rumsfeld and his team desperately need some decisive victories in battle if the American people are to continue to believe what the White House is telling them - that this war is going roughly according to plan.

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Last edited by Smug Git on 03-31-2003 at 08:37 AM

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Registered: Aug 2000
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From everything that I've read on the beginning of the war, I'd say it's a crock. The President made the decision of giving sadaam 48 hours when he did. According to the white house, after that 48 hours was up, Gen. Franks was free to attack whenever he felt was the best time.

The decision to make those first strategic strikes at the "target of opportunity" supposedly came from the whitehouse in some manner, but that did not mean that we had to start full-out.

I read that the ground troops were sent in a bit ahead of schedule becuase our special troops already in Iraq believed that sadaam was having the oil wells rigged with explosives. They made the decision to go in when they did to protect them.

I'm not sure who has the authority in situations like this, Rumsfeld or Franks, but at least as far as waiting on the troops from Turkey to arrive, I'd say it's bunk. If that were the case, you'd think that Franks would pull them out of turkey as soon as action started, instead of waiting a while like he did.

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Registered: Sep 2001
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"we've got a good plan and it's going very, very well"

Rumsfield words that just sprung out of CNN as I clicked on this thread.

"protecting oil wells"

War is peace.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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I agree with Nymbus. I think that all of the miliutary and the government and a good part of the population (including me) thinks that we were foolish to give Saddam as much time as we did by trying to push the second resolution through the security council. Also the President's 48 hour period to give Saddam a chance to step down was resented by many. All that being said I do not think that it greatly altered the chain of events in the war and I do not think that there is any division of opinion between Franks and Rumsfeld or between Franks and Bush. And I think that the war is progressing better than we have any right to expect.

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Registered: Sep 2000
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I think the plausibility of this story if very high. I've heard stories and reports of Rumsfeld remaking the power balance and getting more involved in the organzition and planning of the military from the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he was very forceful and pulled rank in the end with regard to his vision of how the campaign should be run.

As far as the success/ failure of the current camaign, I think it is pretty silly to think that we should have won by now. It does appear to have been a tactical error to go so far, so fast, but in the overall scheme of things, I don't think it will end up mattering too much. It took 8 weeks of bombing and 3 days to drive the Iraq military out of the deserts of Kuwait, where the Iraqis were invaders. Now we have an area 20 times the size and the Iraqis are defenders of their homeland. We are limited in our tactics by the desire to reduce casualities, and its going to take time. It's futile to make serious predictions, but I'd be surprised if they can root out Saddam's supporters within 90 days.

One thing that I'll mention here for lack of knowing a better place to mention it: It's impossible to say for sure, but I suspect taht much of the resistance that we are seeing isn't "saddam's people" resisting as much as it is "Iraq's people" fighting back at an invading force.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nutrimentia
One thing that I'll mention here for lack of knowing a better place to mention it: It's impossible to say for sure, but I suspect taht much of the resistance that we are seeing isn't "saddam's people" resisting as much as it is "Iraq's people" fighting back at
an invading force.

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Registered: Sep 2000
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Absolutely correct with regard to terms of engagement, but an extremely important issue with regard to what it acutally will take for Saddam and his regime to be "gone for good." If "they" keep fighting after Saddam is dead, what then? If that happens, can we conclude a miscalculation by allied planners?

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Registered: Aug 2001
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Funkyrooster mentioned on Friday that Rumsfeld and the military don't get on well, which is the only thing that I have heard that would give these accusations from the New Yorker credence. I wouldn't count the first airstrike (the attempted 'regime decapitation') as necessarily the start of the main campaign, though, as they could have held off a little after that (it isn't as if Saddam didn't know that we were coming already, although I don't know that the preparations that he has had to make have been very time-consuming anyway).

Problem with accusations like this is that we won't know whether they are definitely true, in all probability, until Tommy Franks' autobiography is published (I imagine it as 300 pages of bullet points, 'one: I was born in ....' ... 'five thousand: we sent men to secure the oilfields...') or at least until well after the war.

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from whatI can tell Franks and the Pentagon seem to consistantly contradict themsleves when statements are made. I tend to believe Franks more, although he is of course also a part of the same propaganda machine.

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Maybe some of the contributers to this thread might be interested in reading an article by William Rivers Pitt,
The Miscalculations of Yes-Men

quote:

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We will lose this war by winning it.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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There were reports around August that Rumsfeld was causing divisions in the Pentagon between military and civilian workers. It seems that in Gulf War I the Defense Secretary and other civilian workers laid out the goals of the operation as dictated by the administration and then let the military work out the military end of it. The reports were that this time around Rumsfeld was dictating how the military would fight the war and that it was causing a lot of heartburn for the military members of the Pentagon staff. The only articles I can find from around them that really address it are some Armed Forces Press pieces where Rumsfeld and Meyers deny such a rift existed.

I was able, however, to find this Salon article from August 9, 2002, which has the following bit:

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"I don't think there's any question," says one Clinton Pentagon official, "that Enduring Freedom was fought differently because [Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld] was in there prodding, saying, 'General, that's not creative enough. General, you're not giving me the options I want.' I have no doubt that Rumsfeld was personally responsible for the fact that Special Operations forces were introduced early into Afghanistan."

But Afghanistan was one case. And while nearly everyone agrees -- in theory at least -- that civilians should prod the chiefs for better answers and question their preferred options, there's a fine line between a willingness to overrule military advice and an unwillingness to listen to it at all. And on the peace process, Saudi Arabia and -- most pressingly -- Iraq, Bush Pentagon appointees are increasingly opting for the latter course.

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Registered: Aug 2001
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The most interesting point in the New Yorker was that Rumsfeld is alleged to have overruled Franks' plans six times (on grounds of cost, I guess, seeing as that is the main objection to using more troops); the bits that dmoon posts certainly don't suggest that that isn't true (although they don't do any more than make it possible, I guess, that Rumsfeld would do that regardless of the reservations of the military).

I imagine that the relationship between the military and their civilian bosses is bound to be tense; as long as the civilians take the rap for things that go wrong (as they should) then I guess that is how it ought to be. Ignoring the experts is a risky business, but it also does seem possible that the military will try to wring everything they can from the administration (certainly more than they need) so a fine judgement is needed.

If there really is a plan to make Iraq democratic and pro-western at the same time, not to mention Iran somehow becoming democratic and pro-western, then that would seem to be extremely optimistic (I won't hold my breath in waiting for it). Hopefully there isn't such a plan, at least not one that is seriously held.

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