Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures'

The Armed Forces article is linked below:
A failure in generalship

This guy must be seeking early retirement. His career is OVER.

I agree, its takes a lot of balls to come out and say something like that, but it's definitely going to end his career. Some may even call it insubordination.

By the late 70's, we read about the Pentagon's assessment of Vietnam and the lessons learned. It was led by guys like Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkoff, who were lieutenants during the war in VN.

The lessons:

1. You must have a clear concise objective.
2. The objective must be achievable, with a clear plan to do so.
3. Go in heavy, show overwhelming force and win quickly.
4. Plan for the post war situation and have an exit strategy.
5. As soon as the objective has been achieved, get out.

This was applied perfectly in the Gulf War in 1991.

It's too bad Bush II did not have the brains, war experience and international experience his father had.

He compounded his problems by picking a largely incompetent cabinet, and not listening to his best advisor, who was Colin Powell. Powell did not want to go into Iraq, but was overruled by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice. That is why Powell resigned, and left Bush surrounded by the keystone cops.

I think the political strategy has been poor and the generals implementation of the strategy has been as bad.

It appears we did not understand the cultural issues in the country nor what that would mean for a post war Iraq. The society is not homogenous, like Japan or Germany at the end of WWII. While putting a democracy in the ME may seem like a good idea to the US, how do you think it looks to Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia? Not very good. It is a threat to their 'strong man rule' models. Did we ever think they would stand by and watch a threat to their authoritarian states without lifting a finger? Heck no, they could exploit the religous tensions and keep the US ward destabilized for decades. This is just a gross failure to plan the post war phase.

We'll have to learn the lessons of Vietnam all over again.

Edited:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24891-2004Dec24?language=printer
Damning article from an army insider. Cites the failure to completely plan the Iraq operation. We just pulled a cowboy deal, ready, fire, aim, now we're spending $4 Billion per month, 3,200 dead, still losing close to 100 dead per month. Due to incompetence from the top on down.

Read at your own Risk, my rant on this!

As a supporter of this war and the Bush Administration's first term I really hate it because if this is all true the Democrats could turn out to be correct.
Having said that I hate and dispise them for their verbal comments on the air
waves across the world that has encouraged and strengthened the enemy, etc.

I no longer like politics whether it is republican or democrats.
The last good strong leader was Reagan IMHO, before and after him they
haven't been worth a **** for decades.
Our leaders sadly, whether its generals or Presidents aint worth a damn anymore.
I also think 12 Al Quada terrorists have brought this country to its knees and it
amazes me to think that this country was once a great country.
Sorry, Until a leader comes along that knows their **** and will attack when
we are attacked and "WIN" the glass is half empty and not half full.

Those of you who want to blame one side for our problems,****.
This **** is no longer up for debate as far as I'm concerned.
My mood has quite changed on this subject, I'm not a nice guy any longer on
this subject I'm quite weary of this, Bush's blunders, the general blunders
and the Democrats tactics of acting like 12 year olds.
Let's not forget that both sides are responsible here, dems voted for the war
and now act like they didn't but I still blame Bush and the Generals more because they really screwed up and they had the power to win.
I wish we wouldn't have went in now in the first place but it was the right thing to do and I want to win.
For those who ask what winning means, **** ***, answer your own damn
questions first, no debate here!

I want to win wars and not lose them by any means necessary, war is hell.
I care greatly about this country and don't give a damn about the world.
I'm not a world citizen I'm an American, I'm also damn tired of sending our tax
money to other countries while they support our enemies and talk behind our
backs.
The world will be against us unless they need us, we are convenient for them
in a time of need and that is all.
My take but no debate needed, both sides are just awful now days.
I have much better things to do than geaux on any more or debating this crap, my kids, Nba playoffs, baseball, life in general, anything really is better
than this....

BJ hit the nail on the head. The bottom line is that we didn't adequately define the objectives of the mission, and are now engaged in activities beyond the scope of our responsibilities.

The responsibility for such a gross oversight lies solely with the administration, as such concern was voiced vociferously by both proponents and opponents of the war.

The objectives of the war was to overthrow Saadam and establish a stable, democratic government. If you achieve your objective and the enemy fails to achieve his, you "win." Obviously only part of the American objective has been acheived.

Putting an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal is not the solution, nor is depending on the UN to do anything. But Bush has not been a good war-time president. His decisions have been very poor, in part because he tends to see what he wants to see and often fails to listen to sound advice.