[Lennyjoe]

Report: Rumseld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
Sat Mar 29, 6:39 PM ET Add Politics to My Yahoo!



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon (news - web sites) planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq (news - web sites), New Yorker Magazine reported.

In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.


"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."


It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.


"They've got no resources. He was so focused on proving his point -- that the Iraqis were going to fall apart," the article, by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as saying.


A spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the article.


Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship with the Army's upper echelons while he commands strong loyalty from U.S. special operations forces, a key component in the war.


He has insisted the invasion has made good progress since it was launched 10 days ago, with some ground troops 50 miles from the capital, despite unexpected guerrilla-style attacks on long supply lines from Kuwait.


Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.


Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said.


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


The article quoted the senior planner as saying Rumsfeld had wanted to "do the war on the cheap" and believed that precision bombing would bring victory.


Some 125,000 U.S. and British troops are now in Iraq. U.S. officials on Thursday said they planned to bring in another 100,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of April. //


Personally, I am very leary of our Sec of Defense's decision making.

[jmbg29]

the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as sayingWell Lenny, if you want to believe an anonymous source over someone as forthright and plain spoken as Rumsfeld, I can't help you. :(

BTW if you think that Rueters and the New Yorker have anything in mind other than a crushing defeat for our country - complete with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our troops - then I can't help you either.

I would think that your being on active duty would give you a better insight into who are our enemies vs. who is on our side.

Hint: The entire staff of the New Yorker would happily dance on your grave for you having committed the crime of defending our country with honor and courage.

[Coronach]

:rolleyes:

We're in the process of handing out the biggest royal ***-whipping since Omdurman, but the New Yorker thinks that Rumsfeld's judgement is unsound because 4ID wasn't in-country before the bodies started hitting the floor?

Mmmmmmmkay. :rolleyes:

I'll stick with the people who do military things for a living on this one, thanks.

Mike

[Tamara]

It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.

Oh, sweet Vishnu!

Hey! Vasco De Gama! Howzabout you go drag your atlas out and show me what other country bordering Iraq had a snowball's chance in Hades of letting us stage ground troops? Syria? Iran? :rolleyes:


Friggin' Reuters and The New Yorker! That's exactly who I turn to when I want accurate military analyses. (...and I get my restaurant reviews from Jane's.)

[Blackhawk]

There's just not much to add to what jmbg29, Coronach, and Tamara said.

But if you think any of the Clinton Perfumed Princes or functionaries still at the Pentagon have the cojones to tell anybody anything that happens in planning sessions with Rummy, you're nuts.

[Nightcrawler]

Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.

World War One was a stalemate. Millions of men died on both sides, and nobody gained an inch of ground at times.

In this war, after a week, we've more or less taken 40% of the country, with only a few disjointed pockets of resistance. We've taken less than two hundred casualties all told (less than forty dead, I believe) whereas the Iraqis have lost probably thousands of soldiers. We've lost like two tanks, whereas the Iraqis have lost prettymuch every one we catch in the open.

Yeah, it's a stalemate alright. :rolleyes:

[Lennyjoe]

I would think that your being on active duty would give you a better insight into who are our enemies vs. who is on our side.

I do. I just hate it when the professionals at arms are kept from doing what is necessary to achieve victory. Expecially by a politician.

BTW if you think that Rueters and the New Yorker have anything in mind other than a crushing defeat for our country - complete with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our troops - then I can't help you either.

I also take into account who produced this article. My point is I hope that the Gov doesnt tie one hand behind our back. Give the professionals everything they need to fight the war.

[Coronach]

Lenny, I agree with you, re: politicians tying the hands of the military in a shooting war. And as soon as I see any sign of it happening, I'll get back with you.

The only thing I can see as questionable was going before the 4th ID was in place and ready to roll, as the original gameplan was to have them charging in from the north. Now they're coming in as relief. So? If 3ID and the Devil Dawgs had gotten stomped on their charge north, these guys might have a point.

They didn't, and they don't.

Heck, now you have a completely fresh unit coming in, able to either relieve a unit up front, quell resistance in the rear, or join in the full-bore slaughter that will be the Battle of Baghdad.

Mike

[jmbg29]

I do. I just hate it when the professionals at arms are kept from doing what is necessary to achieve victory. Expecially by a politician.As do I. I see zero evidence that this has happened. I also take into account who produced this article.Well, if you are, then you just don't know the people that produced that article as well as you should. My point is I hope that the Gov doesnt tie one hand behind our back. Give the professionals everything they need to fight the war.If that is your point, then we agree. I saw nothing in the thread's title, or your opening post to indicate that is what you meant. Personally, I am very leary of our Sec of Defense's decision making.What, other than this laughable Rueters/New Yawka story, makes you "leary"? If you don't mind my asking.

[mons meg]

This whole thing is too early to call. Let's worry about deconstructing what who did when and where after Iraq is having free elections with more than one candidate on the ballot. It may very well be that the ground commanders wanted more time...they always do. Maybe the 4th should have been in on the inital attack, and the 101st should have been dropped in toto north of Baghdad.

Maybe they should have called me up and offered to pay me to run through the streets of Basra Filipino style with a pair of machetes mowing down those damn Fedayeen. :mad:

A few years from now there will be a "real Story of the Iraq War" on the History Channel. Until then, let's just pour it on 'em!!!

(they really do need a bloodlust smilie icon for what I am trying to express)

[Boats]

All you need to know about this "article" is that it is by Seymour Hersh, who is a liberal hit piece writer.

Hmmmm. Do I find a guy who wrote a book detailing American "war atrocities" in Gulf War I credible? This guy went after Gen. McCaffrey for "massacring" retreating and surrendering Iraqis.:rolleyes:

I think the only real criticism that can be leveled is twofold: First, the State Department didn't deliver Turkey or cut them out soon enough. The 4th ID was always planned to be deployed, but now they are ready to go on the personnel side but the equipment is farting around the Arabian peninsula.

Seconly, perhaps the 4th should have been scratched after not gaining Turkish access and a second Marine Division brought to bear as they deploy more rapidly.

What this war points up, like the last Gulf War also illustrated, is how the unglamorous world of air/sea lift, forward prepositioning, and logistics in general, gets the short-shrift when more snazzy weapons systems are the order of the day.

Let's account. The Air Force is ordering the F-22 when no Air Force in the world, save for the United States Navy/Marines, could deal with them for more than a week or two with their current F15s and 16s.

The Army was trying to make that Crusader monstrosity and the wacko OCSW.

The Marines have their Osprey (Albatross) which has killed more jarheads in the past fifteen years than the Iraqi Army has.

The Navy mercifully ended the Seawolf submarine program, but they will undoubtedly keep finding ways to not have an adequate supply of roll on/off ships to scrounge up.

If we ever did fight North Korea, they wouldn't give us months to get our pieces in place.:rolleyes:

[Lord Grey Boots]

An UNNAMED FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER?!?!?

So, the source is someone who would not have been in on the planning in any case?

Others have pointed out the "Stalemate" fallacy.

The article is complete nonsense.

[ahadams]

two points here:

1. Yeah it would be sweet if we had those six Army divisions (and all the additional Navy (can you say "air groups" can you say "battleship"), Marine, and Airforce assets) that clinton got rid of, but we ain't got 'em, and we're not gonna get 'em back all at once. Given that we pull this off, and it sure looks to me like we're going to do so, it will be the clintonistas' worst nightmare in that we as a nation can still act without worrying about the un et al. That in and of itself makes this game worth the candle, even if it wasn't to stomp out idiot like SH.


2. Boats is entirely correct about the NK's not giving us months and months to get our act together. Although, I would submit (though the Navy guys here probably know this much better than I do) that one of the real reasons the Navy wont invest in sufficient RO/RO capacity is that it would clearly demonstrate the need to bring back a fair number not only DD's, DE's, and CL's, but also CVL's. (And if I remember my limited command of Navy nomenclature correctly, to all you nonmilitary types that's Destroyers, Destroyer Escorts [sort of the 'sport/econo version of a destroyer], Light Cruisers, and Escort Carriers [sport/econo version of an aircraft carrier - called 'jeep carriers' during WWII].

[Lennyjoe]

Ok, let me take another aproach to this.

My whole point is that I hope the folks on the hill give us every means and equipment to complete the task they assign us. So far I see nothing that tells me they arn't but you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Maybe I should climb out from under the rock I have been living under. The New Yorker, Reuters and even Janes credibility is not well known by me unlike others here.

So maybe I will do my homework before I post news and stuff and I will avoid political debates. Guess being in the military I should refrain from second guessing the Gov.

Being here I only get to see 20 minutes of CNN and the rest is BBC and whatever I can read online. CNN is even suspect in some areas.

So once again, All I meant was that I hope they dont limit our abilities to win a war. Like they did in the 60's

.

[Sergeant Bob]

My whole point is that I hope the folks on the hill give us every means and equipment to complete the task they assign us.
Don't worry, I think they will. It's normal to be apprehensive, especially considering how things were handled during previous administrations. G.W. is commited to this and will do what it takes to get it done. He's not doing this for show or to establish a legacy. I think he believes in what he's doing.
Rumsfeld is a hawk and won't take B.S. from anyone. I think he will come through for the military.
CNN is even suspect in some areas.
They are suspect in alot of areas. They aren't called the Clinton/Communist News Network for nothing. Try Fox News if you can get it (probably not though). I know AFARTS (my own acronym for them, cause they kinda stink) is pretty limited for selection.
Anyway, this is a good place to drop by to get the news and get your head screwed on straight. This old crew chief and everyone else here is pulling for you over there.

[Tom B]

We have taken 40% of what? The desert? I am concerned about the number of Americans who seem to think that once we showed up over there all the arabs were going to throw up their hands and surrender. If one was for or against this war is of no importance now. Whats done is done so lets get it over with as quickly as safely possible. My best info source is the retired military officers on this war. The active duty officers are only going to say what they are told to say. I do have concerns about interference of the politicians in running this war. Troop safety in some cases may not be of top priority vs politics. Keep in mind our troops are about to attempt to take a city with a population of 4000000! That is about 1/2 the population of the city of New York! I fear it will not be easy. If all doesn't go well blaming Klinton won't cut it. Those excuses are long gone now. Also to any "Brit Bashers" let me say that their troops seem to be doing very well. I am bloodly impressed ol chaps! ;)

[Bruce H]

How about grabbing Seymour Hersh and beating the living daylights out of him until he gives up the unidentified source. Chances are there is no source, just his own little mind writing an article to get reactions and cause trouble.

[Tamara]

All I'm saying is that I wouldn't put odds on Iraq coming out on top, here. Remarks about "controlling 40% of the desert" aside, we have also inflictid wildly disproportionate losses on the enemy armed forces. We are going to win, of that I have no doubt.

However, those who think it's going to be a bloodless Nintendo game are simply being unrealistic. A best case scenario would be a relatively upper echelon Iraqi deciding that his best chance of continuin to suck wind past his teeth would be to show up at the allied lines with a white flag in one hand and Saddam's head in the other. I ain't holding my breath, but one can always dream.

[Tamara]

Being here I only get to see 20 minutes of CNN and the rest is BBC and whatever I can read online. CNN is even suspect in some areas.

Tell me about it! After an hour of being hyp-mo-tized by CNN at lunch, I drive home with this nagging feeiling that we're losing the war and Iraqi tank columns are poised in the Knoxville suburbs.

Don't worry, I don't think Washington has any intention of losing this one, no matter what they have to do.

[Waitone]

Just a few red flags I noticed as I read the piece:

--Reuters
--New Yorker Magazine
--unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying
--veteran journalist Seymour Hersh
--cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as saying
--Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship with the Army's upper echelons (unattributed assertion).

There is no compelling reason I should give this article or the source article any credence.

Reminds me of Vietnam style reporting.

This is an article deliberately planted in the media which will serve as the source of questioning from a much larger group of "reporters".

Its an old media trick------don't like the way events are going? Create your own news.

[Greybeard]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Being here I only get to see 20 minutes of CNN and the rest is BBC and whatever I can read online. CNN is even suspect in some areas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can see how this would influence your perspective. As Tamara mentioned in another thread, sometimes watching CNN vs. Fox can cause you to believe you are watching a different war.

If you have only limited access to what is being put out by the media around the world - and reactions to same - you might also drop in periodically at www.freerepublic.com. Click on "Articles" and/or "Breaking News". A couple of recent examples from, of all places, Canadian and French sources.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/879438/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/879418/posts

[cuchulainn]

But the New Yorker has mildly amusing cartoons!

[trapshooter]

Frome the article:

veteran journalist Seymour Hersh


There are a lot of terms I would use to decribe Hersh, but 'veteran journalist' isn't on the list.:cuss:

[El Tejon]

"Is it Vietnam yet? Is it Vietnam yet? Is it Vietnam yet? . . . . "

Aaaaahhh! These blown-dry morons in the media who do not know the difference between an automatic rifle and an automatic first down are now telling General Franks that he does not know what he is doing?

Tamara, there are Iraqi tank columns in the Land of Orange? Well, this morning at the bodega I did see on the cover of the NYT's sister paper, the Weekly World News, that thousands of North Koreans are in California posing as insurance salesmen.:D

[gburner]

'The only hope is that they can hold out until re-enforcements arrive." ***????

Somebody help me with the quote....
'the enemy has us surrounded. May god have mercy on the poor bastards.'

You would think that we were the Texicans trying to hold out at the Alamo.

[Coronach]

What this war points up, like the last Gulf War also illustrated, is how the unglamorous world of air/sea lift, forward prepositioning, and logistics in general, gets the short-shrift when more snazzy weapons systems are the order of the day.

Let's account. The Air Force is ordering the F-22 when no Air Force in the world, save for the United States Navy/Marines, could deal with them for more than a week or two with their current F15s and 16s.

The Army was trying to make that Crusader monstrosity and the wacko OCSW.

The Marines have their Osprey (Albatross) which has killed more jarheads in the past fifteen years than the Iraqi Army has.

The Navy mercifully ended the Seawolf submarine program, but they will undoubtedly keep finding ways to not have an adequate supply of roll on/off ships to scrounge up.

If we ever did fight North Korea, they wouldn't give us months to get our pieces in placeNot to hijack the thread, but:

1. No one will ever say we have adequate airlift/sealift capabilities until we have enough resources to move every division we have to any point on the globe, immediately. The fact is that our sealift capabilities are much better than they were in Desert Storm, and are in excess of that of every other nation on earth. A lack of sealift has nothing to do with the delay in getting 4ID into place. It has to do with the simple fact that all of 4ID's stuff was floating off of Turkey, and now it has to be moved to the gulf. It just takes time for the ships to sail from point A to point B. Its not like the USN is having to make multiple trips.

2. As to the Cusader/F22/Osprey/Seawolf, this is called 'staying ahead of the Jonses.' It is expensive to maintain a technological edge, but it must be done if we continue to like to win wars with out appreciable losses. Now, yes, there is a point at which you end up paying too much for what you get, but I'm not so sure that any of these programs fit that bill. Even the much derided B2 is making quite a splash, flying from CONUS and dropping JDAMs with impunity on the most heavily defended airspace in the middle east.

Naturally, if the technology doesn't work (Osprey might fit that bill, but I'm no aeronautical engineer, as would OCSW/OICW), that is another kettle o fish.

But recall...the f15 was designed when I was born. THe Paladin is older, and can't keep up with the tanks it is designed to support, the 688 class attack subs are long in the tooth. Blackhawks aren't exactly brand new, and still crash regularly. You have to keep current.

Mike

[Jeff White]

Lennyjoe,
I hear ya brother...IMHO Donald H Rumsfeld is going to be the 22d centruy equivilent of Robert Strange McNamara. I wish that some media with a bit more credibility then Seymour Hersch would cover this story.

Rumsfeld has never seen the elephant and has a history of ignoring the advice of those who have if their opinion on how things should be is different then his. The way the war is being prosecuted is as much about proving his pet theory of a transformed force relying on precision munitions and digitilized communications rather then brute force as it is about deposing Saddam.
The history books will prove you right. I believe that the level of resistance we met shocked the top levels of leadership in the Pentagon, and they have been trying to put a positive spin on things since we started. Even though Rumsfeld himself never went as far as saying this was going to be a walk in the park, he certainly never stopped his underlings from saying that. The pre-war press coming out of the Pentagon was very jingoistic. We had all the conservative commentators talking about how the only thing in doubt was if the war would take 2 days or 4 days.

Winning was never in doubt. It's not in doubt now. What is in doubt is the direction Rumsfeld wants to take the defense department. Can we beat a major regional power with acceptable losses to our own forces with a force composed of aircraft dropping precision munitions and small highly mobile ground forces linked together digitally? It didn't work well a year ago in Afghanistan during Anaconda, it's not worked according to plan in Iraq, no matter how much the administration says it is.

We're not in any danger of losing, but some forum members here need to put their cheerleading aside and look at your original question. What happens here will shape defense spending and policy in the United States for decades. We've proven we can beat the Taliban with precision munitions and special forces leading an indiginous force. But then, how effective were the Taliban? Now the similar strategy we are using in Iraq is running into difficulties. Difficulites that are of the administrations own making. We even had a couple threads here about how the administration was making the upcoming war sound easier then it might be.

A good comparison might be the threads that are always ongoing here about the ultimate bullet for defensive use. There are no magic bullets and in a war, no plan survives contact.

Few people in the administration expected the Iraqis to fight. A big part of our plan was based on them not fighting. And they publically encouraged this belief in the months leading up to the war. They derserve what they get in the press. They brought it on themselves with their jingoistic, cavalier attitude towards war.

That said, I have no doubt that we will adjust our plans and bring in enough troops and fire power to finish the job. I just wish they'd be man enough to stand up and admit they misjudged the Iraqi resistance.

Jeff

Edited to correct some typos

[Boats]

Well here is my point. It kind of befits my personal taste in handguns:

If it ain't broke--don't fix it.

I have yet to find the rule that says once you have something sucessful and already better than the Joneses that you must throw the design out.

So the F-15 and F-16 are old designs? So what? They are still more capable than most every threat aircraft out there. The best MiG squadrons in the world are aggressor forces flown by Germany and the United States and the engagements have to be contrived as if there is no AEW platform aloft. What does that say about the rest of the world.

Why not build some new air superiority fighters we have already spent all of the R&D on. I will credit the Navy here. They became a little dissatisfied with the F/A-18. Instead of call for a clean sheet, they commissioned the Super Hornet, to leverage the money they already spent.

The LA class attack boats are getting old. Nothing precludes the Navy commissioning more and still having the best attack sub going.

The Marine Corps keeps the AH-1 Cobra going. They are supposedly commissioning yet another update of the design called the Viper. Why the USMC can't get along with the Blackhawk is beyond me.

The Chinooks used by both the Army and the USMC are old. I bet Boeing still has the schematics somewhere.

Replacing the Paladin is called for. Replacing it with something that weighs 80 tons is not.

If the Pentagon is claiming it is necessary to be able to fight two regional conflicts at a time, it should be deployable as such.

From experience, it doesn't take two weeks+ to get from the Eastern Med to Kuwait or Umm Qasr, even at 10 knots. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the 4th ID not being in place is a combination of diplomatic failure and DoD arrogance that they would not be needed.

[El Tejon]

Misjudged the Iraqi resistance? How? I don't get it.

CF platoon sized fights that last a few minutes? Where are the counterattacks along the roads or bridges? Leaving your best doggies out to get stomped by US air?

Iraq has not put up a single plane. Not a single counterattack. When they stop running away, we shoot them. What "difficulties" are our boys having?

Some in administration were hoping that more would quit (some who you correctly state have not seen metal fly). Just because Iraq is a thugocracy does not mean all Iraqis quit being Iraqis. Look how fierce the Dutchies fought for Adolph Hitler.

If the Iraqis wanted to fight, then they would have fortified their cities and let us come to them. They don't want to fight. They are driven with whips just as they have always been for thousands of years; however, they still fight and we will still defeat them.

Really, Jeff, casting a cynical eye upon the newfangled "Iwannacoolgadget" toys! You sound like El Tejon.:D

[jmbg29]

Rumsfeld has never seen the elephant and has a history of ignoring the advice of those who have if their opinion on how things should be is different then(sic) his*.emphasis addedYou have some concrete examples of this I am sure. The way the war is being prosecuted is as much about proving his pet theory of a transformed force relying on precision munitions and digitilized communications rather then brute force as it is about deposing SaddamYour source for that is?The history books will prove you right. I believe that the level of resistance we met shocked the top levels of leadership in the Pentagon, and they have been trying to put a positive spin on things since we started.Well, we could have done it in the fashion that you are suggesting, you know, have Rumsfeld and General Franks go out every day and say things like "You can't spell quagmire without I-R-A-Q!" or how about "U.S. OUT OF NORTH AMERICA! DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY!"

Or, they could do as they did. Make it plain to the thugs that we are coming. We aren't going to stop coming. And that we get to the outskirts of their capital in a couple of days "Because we can." As one General put it so well, and so succinctly.It didn't work well a year ago in Afghanistan during Anaconda, it's not worked according to plan in Iraq, no matter how much the administration says it is.Yeah, we are getting our butts stomped. Maybe we should surrender?Few people in the administration expected the Iraqis to fight.Your source for this is?That said, I have no doubt that we will adjust our plans and bring in enough troops and fire power to finish the job. I just wish they'd be man enough to stand up and admit they misjudged the Iraqi resistance.And had they thrown everything we had at them, and suddenly Kim Jong Il had gone ballistic (in any number of ways) you most likely would have called them fools. Oh well. :rolleyes: :scrutiny: :uhoh: :barf:

[Jeff White]

El Tejon,
I think that many at high levels actually expected an almost instantaneous collapse of the Iraqi military. I think that we expected that we would control all the ground we liberated without a significant security force because all the people would great us like we were liberating Holland in September of 1944. Hence the catch and release plans for EPWs.

The only difficulties our boys are facing is having to secure the MSR with more troops then we thought would be necessary.

I think that they learned from the first Gulf war. They aren't going to come out and fight in the open like we'd like them to. Talk about a turkey shoot.....I think that their plan is to try to inflict enough casualties to make us lose our resolve. I don't think it will work, but if the chicken littles in the press corps are screaming now, wait until we move into the cities to root them out.

War is hard and ugly. They haven't yet really begun to fight. The administration has put themsleves in a bad position now with regards to American casualties. Casualties that professional soldiers consider light, are being portrayed as disaterous in the press. Unless Rummy get out of his flowered, gunwriter's shirt and stands up and tells the American press corps that war is still hard, bloody, dirty and that despite our impressive technology good young men will still bleed and die to achieve our goals, the upcoming battle in Baghdad could be the downfall of the administration. We can still win on the ground and lose in the press.

Personally, I don't think that Rumsfeld can take off his flowered shirt and stop espousing his pet theories long enough to be honest. Too much of his own personal credibilty is on the line.

Jeff

[El Tejon]

Jeff, I know of no administration official who expressed those desires. Some people related to the administration did express precatory language about the outcome (it was here that "cakewalk" was used).

The MSR? "Is it Vietnam yet? Are we bogged down yet?" Yes, that's where I'd hit too. However, if a coffee-drinking, file-carrying desk REMFer can see that, would not General Franks as well? Name a recent attack on the MSR???

The press set the standard for causalities via their use of precatory reports from those safely in the rear. The administration is telling us that this phase will entail further sacrifice. Yep, got it, yellow footprints and all. I do not see how the administration's refusal to call off the war because some of our boys pay the ultimate price is going to hurt them politically.

The American people know war means young men die, however they do not want these deaths to be for naught. If the administration sees the fight through and completes Phase I, there's no reason the American people will turn on them.

Why do you analogize Rumsfield to a chateau general? How has he been deceptive?

[longeyes]

If we are going to try and fight "pc" wars and defend U.S. interests far and wide, we are going to need a level of militarization and mobilization far beyond what we currently have. Can that be sold to the American people, too many of whom are already impatient with how things are going? Iraq is but one country, and not a big one or a powerful one. Suppose the theater of this war spreads? You really believe a streamlined force and JDAMs are going to be our defining edge? I think we are going to need far more soldiers, volunteers or conscripts, and a willingness to get un-pc if we are going to survive through this next long period. Such is the dilemma of a civilized people forced to engage in uncivilized activities. I think the American people think, or want to think, wars are just something you do on the side while wondering when the market is going to rebound and what the new cars will look like. I think we need a new and harder message and a new and harder resolve.

[El Tejon]

long, who's impatient? The press? The press is impatient that their side, the Iraqis, have not driven the infidel into the harbour at Kuwait City.

The polls I have seen this morning show overwhelming support to the prosecution of this war, both having it and as to understanding that this will take a while. We know that this is just Phase I and that God's Monkey House needs a good cleaning.

Yes, it will be done with streamlined forces and JDAMs, SFers and STs, the CIA and NSA; depends on who we will kill next. On September 11th the East, yet again, struck at Western civilization. For that, we will destroy them yet again but with a rifle not a shotgun.

long, I concur regarding a "meaner, leaner America", perhaps I have more faith in the American people (those outside New York and DC--isn't it ironic that we fight for them) than others here?:D

[Jeff White]

jmbg29,

Here is the start of the documentation you requested. Let me know when you've seen enough. This is on Anaconda. I'll be digging out all the stuff on how Rumsfeld was responsible for the "footprint" being kept small in Afghanistan and again in Iraq.



ARMY TIMES September 30 2002
by Sean D. Naylor
OFFICERS: AIR FORCE POLICY LEFT GROUND TROOPS HIGH AND DRY

General, senior officials say units need more personnel to call in munitions. The Army general who ran Operation Anaconda and one of his senior fire support officers are taking issue with Air
Force practices they say allowed enemy targets to escape destruction and deprived soldiers under fire of badly needed close air support.

In particular, they say, the Air Forces reliance on precision guided bombs created several problems for troops on the ground in Anaconda, the March battle in Afghanistan's Shah-e-Kot Valley. The comments come at a time when Army leaders are fighting a rear-guard action in Washington against what they see as the Defense Department's trend towards over reliance on precision-guided munitions in shaping the future U.S. military.

Their arguments are laid out in two articles in the September-October issue of Field Artillery magazine, the official journal of the Field Artillery Center and School at Fort Sill, Okla. The first article is an interview with Maj. Gen.
Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, the 10th Mountain Division commander who was in charge during Anaconda. The second article, "Afghanistan: Joint and Coalition Fire Support in Operation Anaconda," was written by Lt. Col. Christopher Bentley, Hagenbeck's fire support coordinator during the operation.

It sometimes took "hours" for the Air Force to deliver close air support to soldiers on the ground, Hagenbeck told Field Artillery. Once a request for some close air support had been passed to a jet by an Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, it took the Air Force 26 minutes to calculate the desired mean point of impact, which is required to ensure the bomb hits the target, Hagenbeck said.

After that, the aircraft had to get into a busy airspace management scheme before it could attack the target and deliver the bomb. "Aircraft were stacked up to the ceiling" and could only be flown in a few at a time, he told Field Artillery. "It took anywhere from 26 minutes to hours [on occasion] for the precision munitions to hit the targets.

"That's ok if you're not being shot at or the targets aren't fleeing," Hagenbeck told Field Artillery. But often U.S. troops were under fire and the targets were "fleeting."

When al-Queda forces on resupply missions stopped their sport utility vehicles in one place long enough, "the fixed wing aircraft would slam them," Hagenbeck told the magazine. But he said, that didn't happen often enough.

"We really worked to find ways to kill fleeting targets in the first three or so days," he told Field Artillery. "Honestly, we weren't that successful."

But getting the jets on station quickly enough was only part of the problem. All too often, according to Hagenbeck and Bently, even when a jet was available, Air Force rules prevented it from coming to the aid of soldiers who needed it's support.

"We have a huge procedural and training issue we've got to work through with our Air Force friends," Hagenbeck told Field Artillery.

The problem as he explained it, is that the Air Force refuses to drop precision guided munitions unless the strike has been called in by an Air Force ground forward air controller or an Air Force enlisted terminal attack controller.

But there are not enough of these personnel for one to be placed in every Army unit that might require close air support. This was particularly the case in Anaconda, Hagenbeck told Field Artillery.

"This war became platoon fights separated by distances in very rugged terrain wit too few ETACs to go around." he said.

Even infantry units with an airman to call in strikes, he said can easily lose that critcal capability during combat.

"What happens if the ETAC is injured and he has to be medevaced [medically evacuated] or is killed?"

"We needed as many ETACs and GFACs as we could [get] on the ground, and the Air Force doesn't have them now and they probably won't have them in the foreseeable future," he told Army Times.

The solution, according to Hagenbeck and Bently is to train and certify the Army's forward obsevers - who call in artillery and mortar fire - as "unversal observers," able to call in any Army or Air Force munitions.

"Our FOs must be certified as ground forward air controllers," Bentley said in the article. "this may be a sore spot with the Air Force, but I believe it to be non-negotionable."

For his part, Hagenbeck said while it may be a "sore spot" among Bentley's counterparts in the Air Force, it was not a point of discord between Army and Air Force generals. "Conceptually, we're all in agreement that it needs to happen," Hagenbeck told Army Times.

In the mean time, the Army must do a better job of integrating Air Force tactical air control party personnel - the ETACs and GFACs - into ground maneuver units' training and operations, according to Bentley.

"We cannot continue to operate with an add-on conglomerate of Air Force personnel, especially during combat operations," he writes. "We must train and fight as a team."

The Air Force did not provide an official to discuss the issues raised by Hagenbeck and Bentley before Army Times' deadline.

Hagenbeck and Bentley also touched on other procedural problems that surfaced with the Air Force during Anaconda.

Bentley criticized the need to coordinate what strike aircraft would be needed over the battlefield 36 hours ahead of time, as part of the air tasking order process. The ATO is "the best mechanism available tocoordinate the hundreds of human and mechanical pieces involved in getting air on station, but it is conversly inflexible and not well suited to support a non-linear, asymettrical battlefield," he wrote. "The ATO must be flexible enough to change aircraft and munitions packages as the intelligence picture changes by the minute. Increasing flexibility of the ATO cycle is imperitive to responsivness in
today's operational environment."

In his article, Bentley suggests that perhaps the Air Force was reluctant to take steps that would lead to better close air support.

"In some cases, the inabilities of aircraft to break self-imposed [Air Force] altitude restrictions and slow their strike speed down to strafe the battlefield (the latter in the case of bombers) restricted these aircrafts' abilities to
deliver timely munitions in close support of troops on the ground," he wrote.

Hagenbeck also warned against being too impressed by the numbers that get thrown around whenever air
campiagns are discussed.

"A ground force commander does not care about the number of sorties being flown or the numbe ror types of bombs being dropped and their tonnage," he told Field Artillery. "Those statistics mean nothing to ground forces in combat. All that matters is if the munitions are tme-on-target and provide the right effects."

Hagenbeck told Army Times that he was not pointing a finger at the Air Force with these comments. "It's easy to understand numbers, and I think we all often fall into those kinds of traps," he said.

Nevertheless, the general said, "To tell me that we flew this many sorties and dropped this many bombs, in and of itself, doesn't tell me that it's been effective in the war fight. It doesn't tell me where the bombs landed."

Hagenbeck and Bentley were not completely dismissive of precision guided bombs, the best known of which is the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM.

"The JDAMs were terribly effective against fixed targets," Hagenbeck told Army Times. "if we were receiving fire from a cave, if we knew there was going to be a delay [before the close air support arrived], we could continue suppressive fires with our mortars and machine guns, and then they would put a bomb inside the cave. What was more difficult for us if there were fleeting targets on the ridgeline....Then the JDAMs were not effective."

In those instances, it was better for jets to strafe the target area with cannons. The best close air support aircraft for those missions were the Army's AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and the Air Force A-10 "Warthog" ground attack aircraft during the day, and the Air Force Special Operations AC130 Spectre gunship at night,
according to Hagenbeck and Bentley.

"The most effective close air support we had was the Apache hands down," Hagenbeck told Field Artillery. "The detainees later said the Apache was the most feared weapon on the battlefield - the helicopters were on top of them before they knew what was happening. The Apaches came as close to 'one shot, one kill' as you can get."

Both officers had high praise for the Spectre gunship. "It's effectiveness was amazing," Bentley writes. "The enemy began referring to it as the 'Spitting Witch'." He advocated giving each of the Army's four light infantry divisions a squadron of AC130s or at least making the aircraft available for 'all light infantry training and military
operations around the world."

Hagenbeck also made the following points in Field Artillery. He didn't consider bringing in 105 mm howitzers because "I knew I could accomplish the mission without them." The 10th Mountain Division and 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Divisions, each of which contributed troops to Anaconda, are armed with 105mm towed howitzers, but none was deployed to Afghanistan. Hagenbeck told Army Times he did
not know who made the decision not to deploy them, but he acknowledged in Field Artillery that even if he'd have had them available in Afghanistan, he wouldn't have taken them into battle on the first day, because he had too few CH-47 Chinook helicopters to carry them and his infantry force.

However he told the magazine that an organic ground based indirect fire capability is "indispensible" for the close fight.

The U.S. troops may not have had artillery, but al-Quaida certainly did. U.S. forces destroyed five Soviet made D-30 122mm towed howitzers that the enemy used to fire on a joint attack by Special Forces troops with Afghan allies in the early hours of the battle's first day, and also in the infantry forces' helicopter landing zones, Hagenbeck told Field Artillery. U.S. forces found several others in caves, Hagenbeck said. He told Army Times he did not know whether the enemy inflicted any casualties.

American surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft found it very difficult to identify al-Qaida troops and complexes around the valley. "It took 'boots on the ground' to find the caves." Hagenbeck tolkd Field Artillery. "The shadows
alone precluded our discovering a cave until our soldiers were almost on top of it."

The enemy moved in small groups of three to five fighters making them hard to spot and even harder to kill. "During the daylight, we watched them on the Predator," Hagenbeck told Field Artillery. "At night, when they heard a Predator or AC130 coming, they pulled a blanket over themselves to disappear from the night vision screen. They used low tech to beat high tech."

[El Tejon]

Jeff, so Rummy made them leave the arty in Kentucky?:confused: Was it Rummy or someone else who didn't send over enough AFST boys?

How is this SECDEF's fault? Sounds like the typical flagpole princeling hijinks, no?

[stevec]

Its been in various news sources for a while that Rumsfeld wanted to cap the number of troops at 60k. It is also pretty clear that Rumsfeld was looking to validate his pet theories about how to modernize the military. He may be a smart guy, but maybe being a Princeton University Grad, and Navy Aviator makes him a little too much of an elitist visionary, with too little respect for the "old school".

It reminds of me of back in the Carter Administration, they gutted the CIA's operations arm because some "visionaries" thought that ELINT would make field operatives obsolete...

Here is another article (a few days old), maybe some folks will claim that the author is a damned liberal Clintonite mouthpeice, but there's just no convincing some people.


Rumsfeld's strategy under fire as war risks become increasingly apparent
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Five days into the war, the optimistic assumptions of the Pentagon's civilian war planners have yet to be realized, the risks of the campaign are becoming increasingly apparent and some current and retired military officials are warning that there may be a mismatch between Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's strategy and the force he's sent to carry it out.

The outcome of the war isn't in doubt: Iraq's forces are no match for America and its allies. But, so far, defeating them is proving to be harder, and it could prove to be longer and costlier in American and Iraqi lives than the architects of the American war plan expected.

And if weather, Iraqi resistance, chemical weapons or anything else turned things suddenly and unexpectedly sour, the backup force, the Army's 4th Infantry Division, is still in Texas with its equipment sailing around the Arabian peninsula.

Despite the aerial pounding they've taken, it's not clear that Saddam Hussein, his lieutenants or their praetorian guard are either shocked or awed. Instead of capitulating, some regular Iraqi army units are harassing American supply lines. Contrary to American hopes - and some officials' expectations - no top commander of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard has capitulated. Even some ordinary Iraqis are greeting advancing American and British forces as invaders, not as liberators.

"This is the ground war that was not going to happen in (Rumsfeld's) plan," said a Pentagon official. Because the Pentagon didn't commit overwhelming force, "now we have three divisions strung out over 300-plus miles and the follow-on division, our reserve, is probably three weeks away from landing."

Asked Monday about concerns that the coalition force isn't big enough, Defense Department spokesperson Victoria Clarke replied: "... most people with real information are saying we have the right mix of forces. We also have a plan that allows it to adapt and to scale up and down as needed."

Knowledgeable defense and administration officials say Rumsfeld and his civilian aides at first wanted to commit no more than 60,000 American troops to the war on the assumption that the Iraqis would capitulate in two days.

Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Saddam once the Americans attacked.

The officials said Rumsfeld also made his disdain for the Army's heavy divisions very clear when he argued about the war plan with Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the allied commander. Franks wanted more and more heavily armed forces, said one senior administration official; Rumsfeld kept pressing for smaller, lighter and more agile ones, with much bigger roles for air power and special forces.

"Our force package is very light," said a retired senior general. "If things don't happen exactly as you assumed, you get into a tangle, a mismatch of your strategy and your force. Things like the pockets (of Iraqi resistance) in Basra, Umm Qasr and Nasariyah need to be dealt with forcefully, but we don't have the forces to do it."

"The Secretary of Defense cut off the flow of Army units, saying this thing would be over in two days," said a retired senior general who has followed the evolution of the war plan. "He shut down movement of the 1st Cavalry Division and the1st Armored Division. Now we don't even have a nominal ground force."

He added ruefully: "As in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, we are using concepts and methods that are entirely unproved. If your strategy and assumptions are flawed, there is nothing in the well to draw from."
In addition, said senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, Rumsfeld and his civilian aides rewrote parts of the military services' plans for shipping U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf, which they said resulted in a number of mistakes and delays, and also changed plans for calling up some reserve and National Guard units.

"There was nothing too small for them to meddle with," said one senior official. "It's caused no end of problems, but I think we've managed to overcome them all."

Robin Dorff, the director of national security strategy at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., said three things have gone wrong in the campaign:

_A "mismatch between expectations and reality."

_The threat posed by irregular troops, especially the 60,000 strong Saddam Fedayeen, who are harassing the 300-mile-long supply lines crucial to fueling and resupplying the armor units barreling toward Baghdad.

_The Turks threatening to move more troops into northern Iraq, which could trigger fighting between Turks and Kurds over Iraq's rich northern oilfields.

Dorff and others said that the nightmare scenario is that allied forces might punch through to the Iraqi capital and then get bogged down in house-to-house fighting in a crowded city.

"If these guys fight and fight hard for Baghdad, with embedded Baathists stiffening their resistance at the point of a gun, then we are up the creek," said one retired general.

Dr. John Collins, a retired Army colonel and former chief researcher for the Library of Congress, said the worst scenario would be sending American troops to fight for Baghdad. He said every military commander since Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, has hated urban warfare.

"Military casualties normally soar on both sides; innocent civilians lose lives and suffer severe privation; reconstruction costs skyrocket," Collins said, adding that fighting for the capital would cancel out the allied advantages in air and armor and reduce it to an Infantry battle house to house, street by street.

Another retired senior officer said the Apache Longbow helicopter gunships that were shot up badly Sunday had been sent on a deep strike against Republican Guard divisions guarding the approaches to Baghdad. He and others said the Apaches shouldn't have been used that way.

"They should have been preceded by suppression of enemy air defenses," the general said. "There should be a barrage of long-range artillery and MLRS (Multiple-Launch Rocket System) rockets before you send the Apaches in."

Reports from the field said virtually every one of the estimated 30 to 40 Apache Longbows came back shot full of holes, as the Iraqis fired everything they had at them. One did not come back, and its two-man crew apparently was taken prisoner.

"Every division should have two brigades of MLRS launches for a campaign like this," the general said. "They do not, and the question in the end will be why they don't."

He said the Air Force was bombing day and night, but its strikes have so far failed to produce the anticipated capitulation and uprising by the Iraqi people.

One senior administration official put it this way: "'Shock and Awe' is Air Force bull---!"

Dorff said: "Expectations were raised for something that might be quick and relatively painless. What we're seeing in the first few days probably ought to dispel that. Part of the problem is that expectations were raised that we would march in and everybody would surrender - sort of the four-day scenario of 1991."

Instead of streams of surrendering Iraqi soldiers, the American and British forces report that they are holding around 2,000 enemy prisoners.

[Jeff White]

Field Artillery
September-October 2002
Pg. 5

Interview Fire Support For Operation Anaconda

Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, Commanding General, 10th Mountain Division (Light), Fort Drum, New York, and Commanding General, Coalition Joint Task Force Mountain in Afghanistan

By Robert H. McElroy, Fort Sill Public Affairs Specialist, with Patrecia Slayden Hollis, Editor

Major General Hagenbeck was the commander of ground forces in Afghanistan for the 17-day combat Operation Anaconda (February-March), part of Operation Enduring Freedom. The purpose of Operation Anaconda was to dig pockets of al Qaeda forces out of intricate caves in the rugged terrain of the Shah-e-Kot Valley in Afghanistan.

Basically, US forces consisted of some 40 Special Forces soldiers; about 1,200 infantrymen with 60-mm, 81-mm and 120-mm mortars from the 10th Mountain and 101st Divisions; 24 Army cargo, utility and attack helicopters; and Air Force, Marine and Navy aviation assets. In addition
to Afghanistan, coalition nations contributing forces were Canada, England, Germany, Australia, Norway and New Zealand. (This interview was conducted 4 June.)

Q: To set the stage for your discussion of fire support in Operation Anaconda, what were the cultural and environmental conditions and enemy like in Afghanistan?

A: In terms of the terrain, one analogy I use is that if you flip a dinner plate over and then add the Hindu Kush Mountains down through the middle, it is akin to what Afghanistan looks like. The altitude of our headquarters at Bagram Airfield is about a mile high. The Shah-e-Kot Valley floor where we fought had an altitude ranging from 7,000 to 8,000 feet. The valley was ringed by the rugged Turgal Gar Mountains that have an altitude of
11,000 feet in some places.

We called the eastern part of the valley the "Eastern Ridge" and the western part had a terrain feature we called "The Whale." It was very complex terrain, difficult and steep.

The Eastern Ridge had more than 100 caves dug in throughout the ridgeline. The enemy went from what appeared to be small fighting positions to the complex caves; the largest cave we found was about 30 meters deep in an inverted "V" and then went right and left another 30 meters each. That cave was filled with weapons and ammunition caches. Afghanistan has very few roads or even good trails. To get around in Afghanistan, you need to
be part mountain goat.

When the Northern Alliance fought in the first couple of months of the war, substantial numbers of the enemy surrendered. Later, during Operation Anaconda, the al Qaeda soldiers who were left were combat veterans, the hardcore who wanted to fight. Except for a handful of Afghanis, the foreign al Qaeda were virtually all we found in those caves. The al Qaeda declared a Jihad—a holy war—calling on the villagers to kill all Americans in the
first three days and into the fourth day of the
operation. Anaconda was finally the set-piece battle they had been waiting for.

They thought the battle was going to be a "mirror image" of their fight with the Soviets. The Shah-e-Kot Valley is the area in which the Afghanis had fought and won decisively against the Soviets on two occasions. The al Qaeda came to the valley eager to fight and kill Americans.

This was good because we didn’t have to chase so many down after the operation. Once we realized they were coming at us, it was easier to determine specific targets and maneuver our forces. The al Qaeda came out of the cave complexes to fight American infantrymen and then ducked back in when they heard "fast movers" overhead [fixedwing attack aircraft]. We found mortar base plates that were cemented in, allowing the al Qaeda to move tubes easily in and out of the caves. They already had registered their mortars on the key pieces of terrain and other features throughout the valley.

The weather was harsh. Just before Operation Anaconda, it was snowing and sleeting with some light snow at Bagram. Down at the lower elevations, it was raining so hard I had to delay DDay for two days. The temperatures during the first three days of the operation ranged from a high of 60 degrees Fahrenheit to a low of zero with a wind chill the first night of minus 20.
So the temperature, in effect, dropped 80 degrees in 24 hours. The rough terrain and weather had an impact on our targeting. It was very difficult for our overhead ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platforms to identify the cave complexes.

So it took "boots on the ground" to find the caves. The shadows, alone, precluded our discovering a cave until our soldiers were almost on top of it. The Afghanis are a fiercely independent and autonomous people. There’s a lot of tension among the tribes—the only time they seemed to coalesce is to fight a foreign invader, such as the Soviets. The Afghanis are worn out after 23 years of war and happy to let us kill the al Qaeda. But we can’t let the al Qaeda put out a misinformation campaign that we are "invaders." The "clock is ticking." They are going to want us out of there.

Q: If you had, had 10th Mountain Division M119 105-mm howitzers in Afghanistan, would you have used them in Operation Anaconda?

A: In retrospect, we didn’t consider bringing in 105s because I knew we could accomplish the mission without them. With the limited number of assets we brought into Afghanistan, it was clear we could capitalize on our mortars as well as on the Army, Air Force, Marine and Navy aviation assets.

Around the first of February, we got the warning order that something might evolve, and so we started doing the legwork—but the impending operation was far from solidified. I had established my TAC [tactical command post] forward. I went ahead and jumped my TAC and main
[command post] up to Bagram and joined them on
the 17th— 11 days before D-Day.

That’s when I got my first briefing on courses of action. We laid out the troops and other assets available, and I knew we could accomplish the mission. The fact that I did not have 105s never became contentious. So the question, "Would I have used 105s?" is hypothetical. But I will tell you that the trade-off I would have had to make the first day would have precluded me from using 105s. In that terrain, my choice would have been to either airlift in soldiers with their mortars or 105s.

So the next question is, "Why did I use Chinooks [CH-47 cargo helicopters] to bring the troops in rather than Blackhawks [UH-60 utility helicopters], which I also had available?" It was because of the altitude…the constraints on the lift capability of helicopters at that altitude.

In addition, on Day One, we still did not know exactly what anti-aircraft defensive systems the al Qaeda had. We suspected they had Manpacks. We knew they had RPGs [rocket-propelled grenade launchers]. To sling a 105 underneath a CH-47 and try to set it down in very rugged terrain, to include slinging in the ammo after it, would have been very difficult and dangerous.

Then the question becomes, "Well, why couldn’t you have ‘offset’ the 105s—have brought them into another position, not necessarily the top of a mountain, but a position from which they could shoot across the valley— The Whale was one of those places?" My answer is that we were in the "wild, wild west." I would have had to take combat assets to provide security for the battery. I would have had to dedicate Apaches or other "birds" and probably infantry troops to secure that battery until I knew exactly what we were up against.

So there would have been trade-offs which, again, I didn’t face because we didn’t have 105s in country. Let me make something clear: I always want organic fire support systems —always. And at that point, I had mortars. If I’d had 105s, because of the terrain and the lack of road systems, I would not have brought them in on the
first day.

The British have some 105s in Afghanistan now, and we have slung load those howitzers all over the country. But they didn’t come in during Operation Anaconda. In fact, they have not participated in combat and have had limited opportunities to shoot on the Pakistani border.

Q: How effective were your mortars in Operation Anaconda?

A: They performed superbly. Generally, within two rounds, the mortars were ready to fire for effect.

All mortar missions were observed missions—we had Field Artillery FIST [fire support team] personnel at the platoon, company and battalion levels. They were professionals—quick, responsive and calm while processing fire missions.

In the 10th Mountain’s 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry [1-87 IN], the battalion’s companies kept the 60-mm mortars for immediate engagements while the battalion kept the 81-mm mortars and two 120-mm mortars, the latter to provide flexibility to move them around for reinforcing fires.
The rest of the 120-mm mortars were in "general
support," providing full coverage north and south.

Q: What’s the most challenging part of combat operations in Afghanistan?

A: Unquestionably, the harsh environmental conditions—they had an impact on the flying piece. Picture a Chinook sling-loading assets at night in limited illumination with the dirt and dust flying all around. I think the Afghanis invented darkness. Sometimes there was no ambient light.
Our NVGs [night-vision goggles] don’t work well
without a little ambient light.

Our helicopters had to fly in brownout conditions with rocks and rugged terrain beneath them—very few flat places to land on. When the illumination was low, I was hesitant to fly helicopters at night. I saw some great piloting in this operation.

Q: How important is it to have ground-based indirect fires capabilities for the close fight?

A: Indispensable, absolutely indispensable. But let me start by making a bigger point. After Operation Anaconda, I was asked why I didn’t have a bombing campaign in the Shah-e-Kot. The answer is, again, because of the rugged terrain, the cave complexes and the limited target sets—air campaigns are most effective against "fixed" targets.

Early on, there were few, if any, fixed targets we could identify as being highvalue. We templated a couple. We did have an air strike about 20 minutes before the first air assault into the valley. We knew the enemy’s "center of gravity" was inside the caves where his soldiers and logistics were. But we did not know how much C2 [command and control] he had inside that valley.

I did not want to attack the dozens and dozens of cave complexes arbitrarily without having some sense of what was in them. As it turned out, many were empty while some had people, some had munitions and some had documents in them. So, without knowing what was in those caves, we did not want to have air strikes on them until we could assess them. The al Qaeda soldiers would hear fixed-wing aircraft overhead and quickly duck into the caves, protected from most airdropped munitions. So to get them, we had to put a JDAM [joint direct attack munition] inside the cave. But you only have so many of those precision munitions. To keep the enemy from ducking back into their caves, we used mortars and machineguns to kill them outright, when we could, or suppress them. We got a number of kills with close air support [CAS], but they were primarily because our mortars and machineguns kept the al Qaeda from getting up and running back into the caves.

Q: What did you use for CAS and how effective was it?

A: The most effective close air support asset we had was the Apache [AH-64 attack helicopter], hands down. The Apaches were extraordinary— they were lethal and survivable. We had six in the fight with two left flying at the end of the first day. They were so full of holes—hit all over, one took an RPG in the nose—I don’t know how they flew.

But the maintenance guys from the 101st fixed every one. They got those helicopters back up and flying. The detainees later said the Apaches were the most feared weapons on the battlefield —the helicopters were on top of them before they knew what was happening. The Apaches came as close to "one shot, one kill" as you can get.

Our next most effective CAS assets were the A-10s in the daytime and AC- 130s at night. They were great. We also had F-16s and F/A-18s [fighter aircraft] and B-52s [bomber aircraft] providing CAS. For the most part, they carried JDAMs and some dumb bombs. Our fixed-wing pilots faced some procedural and maneuvering challenges.

They had a very small view of the target areas from their cockpits—about the size of a postage stamp. (The Navy and Marine Corps fighter pilots routinely flew as low to the ground as they could to achieve the effects, even when it was below what was deemed minimum safe distance. They were terrific.)

The Air Force had to work through airspace management—aircraft were stacked up to the ceiling and could only be flown in, in a few numbers. And then the angle of attack in the complex terrain made it even more difficult for the pilots. Certainly they had some close support successes. But the bulk of their successes were against
fixed targets, such as when our ground troops identified a cave we wanted taken out.

Later on the first day and into the second day, when I declared two of the villages in the Shah-e-Kot Valley as targets [Marzak and Barbakul], the aircraft leveled them—we had taken hostile fire from the villages and flown Predators [unmanned aerial vehicles] over them to confirm their activities. The aircrafts’ precision
munitions were most effective against those fixed targets. We used precision munitions on known enemy intersections of infiltration and then exfiltration.

But for the first three or four days, we faced "fleeting" targets. By the time the AWACS [airborne warning and control system aircraft] handed a target off, the Air Force said it took 26 minutes to calculate the DMFI [desired mean point of impact], which is required to ensure the
precision munition hits the target. Then the aircraft had to get into the airspace management "cue." It took anywhere from 26 minutes to hours (on occasion) for the precision munitions to hit the targets.

That’s okay if you’re not being shot at or the targets aren’t fleeting—such as the SUVs [support utility vehicles]the al Qaeda used for resupply. When the SUVs stopped to unload and if they stayed in one place long enough, the fixed-wing aircraft would slam them. We really worked to find ways to kill fleeting targets the first three or so days. Honestly, we weren’t that successful. The al Qaeda moved small groups around the battlefield—each had three to five men with rifles on their backs,
maybe blankets. During the daylight, we watched them on the Predator. At night, when these groups heard a Predator or AC-130 coming, they pulled a blanket over themselves to disappear from the night-vision screen. They used low-tech to beat high-tech.

The groups floated onto the battlefield with individual soldiers separated by 10 to 15 meters. They moved out like a squad or fire team. The al Qaeda did not present large target sets. Then the enemy soldiers stopped at a way station with a huge underground complex to resupply.
That complex had a very steep angle of attack,
incredibly difficult for our pilots to hit. Later, when we were able to bomb that complex, it burned and exploded for 11 hours.

[Jeff White]

Q: What mix of munitions would you like to see in future battles?

A: The mix of munitions is a function of METT-T [mission, enemy, terrain, troops and time available]. Ideally you want precision, but it really boils down to wanting responsive, effective fires.

I’ll underscore that point by saying this—a ground force commander does not care about the number of sorties being flown or the number and types of bombs being dropped and their tonnage. Those statistics mean nothing to ground forces in combat. All that matters is whether or not the munitions are time-on-target and provide the right effects.

Q: During Operation Anaconda, what was your organization to conduct targeting and coordinate and deconflict fires and effects?

A: We had the ASOC [air support operations center] with Air Force personnel, primarily out of Saudi Arabia, and my "FSE" [fire support element] headed by my DFSCOORD [deputy fire support coordinator]. The DSFCOORD was my "go to" guy. He kept us on schedule and set up our battle rhythm with targeting—the entire process was doctrinally correct. I think that paid off.

We were designated CJTF [Coalition Joint Task Force] Mountain. It consisted of everything in Afghanistan: elements of the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne Divisions; the JSOTF [Joint Special Operations Task Force], which was mainly the 5th Special Forces Group, Black Special Ops (this group reported to the CINCENT [Commander-in- Chief of Central Command]) and Task Force KBAR/Coalition.

At the height of the battle, we had 200 fire support coordinating measures [FSCM] at one time. We opened and closed them routinely. The bulk of the FSCM were NFAs [no-fire areas] and RFAs [restrictive-fire areas]. In addition to tracking our infantrymen and small Special Forces teams on the battlefield, we had to track personnel from "other agencies"—and you can interpret that any way you want to. Battle tracking was a huge
challenge; it was tedious, but productive. The good news is that during Operation Anaconda, we didn’t have a single fratricide.

Q: What capabilities or procedures would you like to see on future battlefields?

A: Ground commanders always will need and want all-weather, organic, indirect firepower (artillery) that can provide timely, accurate (precision) and effective fires, regardless of the environmental conditions. We had good weather during Operation Anaconda and could fly our
helicopters and aircraft to provide fire support. We were very lucky.

A couple of times when the ceilings dropped, we had limited air coverage. But by that time, it was several days into the fight and we had hurt the enemy badly enough. The ground force needs a highly lethal, all-weather indirect fire capability organic to the force. We need long-haul
communications. If we’re going to fight on a
noncontiguous battlefield spread out over a large area as we did in Afghanistan, then long-haul coms is critical—the Shah-e- Kot Valley was about 120 kilometers of mountainous terrain away from my headquarters.

We had to depend on TACSAT [tactical satellite] for long-haul communications. That meant we had to link all our helicopters and fixed-wing assets to TACSAT.

For command and control, I had challenges communicating with my brigade commander on the ground and his battalion commander. Operation Anaconda quickly became a platoon fight led by platoon leaders. From that perspective, it was very decentralized. This was not a "push-to-talk" war.

We have a huge procedural and training issue we’ve got to work through with our Air Force friends. Because of the complexity of their precision munitions, they will not shoot JDAMs without either a GFAC [ground forward air controller] or ETAC [enlisted terminal attack controller]
calling them in. There are not enough GFACs or
ETACs in their inventory to support every ground maneuver element. And as I said, this war became platoon fights separated by distances in very rugged terrain with too few ETACs to go around.

Let me illustrate my point. On the first day of the operation, one platoon of 1-87 IN fought all day. That platoon happened to have the battalion commander and an ETAC in it. That night, the ETAC was extracted. For the next 24 hours until we could get the ETAC reinserted, not even the battalion commander could call in precision-guided munitions. What happens if the ETAC is injured and has to be MEDEVACed [medically evacuated] or is killed? We need training and certification for
our observers to call in JDAMS—any precision munitions or air support—to be universal observers, if you will. Our Field Artillery leaders, both in the 10th and the 101st Divisions, knew this would be an issue and worked hard to try to get their observers certified.

We have to be careful about employing UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. I would characterize the view UAVs provide as "looking through a soda straw." You have to be careful to direct that view at what you need to see. The UAV operator needs to be sitting next to the ground tactical commander. In this instance, he was sitting in Saudi Arabia. At times the UAV moved out of an area we wanted to look at, and we had to go through channels with a request to redirect the UAV’s search.

During the fight, the higher headquarters controlling the UAV adhered to that request, but we lost a target or two before we could redirect the UAVs. Sometimes higher headquarters controlling the UAVs has a fixation on watching the close fight. It is human nature to want to look at who is being shot at. But sometimes the headquarters needs to back that UAV off to look at the deeper fight, to look at reinforcements coming in—which we did, but we also met resistance at times.

My inclination was to look at the bigger picture all the time to see how I could influence the fight. Occasionally, we had more than one UAV up at a time and could look at both the close and deep fights, but that was not true throughout the fight.

I’d like a lightweight counterbattery radar—not so much for the battle at Shah-e-Kot Valley, but for subsequent fights. In the Valley, we mostly fought mortars that tended to direct lay. We did destroy five D-30s near The Whale that were used to fire on helicopter landing zones. Down along the Pakistan border, we took some rounds from what we think were D-30 howitzers and other systems. The total number of howitzers we actually destroyed was about eight. We also found a few more
howitzers in caves.

I had a Q-36 Firefindar radar at Kandahar Airfield and was prepared to move it into the valley once we had secured an area for it. But because we were experiencing very little indirect fire, I chose not to insert it.

Q: What message would you like to send Field Artillerymen stationed around the world?

A: Tell the Field Artillery School to keep doing what it’s been doing —we have some smart young officers and NCOs here in Afghanistan who have really made a difference. Tell them I love ‘em.

Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck took command of the 10th Mountain Division (Light) and Fort Drum, New York, in August 2001, the same division in which he had served as Chief of Staff and G3 and commanded the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry. In December 2001, he deployed to Afghanistan as the
Commander of the Coalition Joint Task Force Mountain and served as the ground tactical commander during Operation Anaconda. In his previous assignments, he was on the Joint Staff as the Deputy Director for Politico-Military Affairs for Global and Multi-Lateral Issues and Western Hemisphere in the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J5) and, later, the Deputy Director of Current Operations (J33), both at the
Pentagon. Among other assignments, Major General Hagenbeck was the Assistant Division Commander (Operations) in the 101st Airborne Division (Air
Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Director of Officer Personnel Management in the Total Army Personnel Command, Alexandria, Virginia. He also
commanded the 3d Training Brigade at Fort
Leonard Wood, Missouri. He holds an MBA from Long Island University, New York, and a MS in Exercise Physiology from Florida State University. He has
a Bachelor of Science from the US Military Academy at West Point.

[Tamara]

I have to admit that (post "Anaconda") I was worried about some half-baked plan for Iraq that would involve SOCOM units dropped on airfields, LAVs tooling around in the boonies, and us crossing our fingers for a bunch of Kurds and Shi'ites to show up with their own AKs. I know I posted about this on TFL, and I'm pretty sure I brough it up when we met face-to-face.

I've seen enough video of Abrams and Challenger 2's in the sands of Iraq to convince me that this wasn't the plan this time. I'm giving the brass some credit for learning from Afghanistan, but I think that even the most starry-eyed "future war" proponent knew that you don't go up against an entrenched, tank-heavy dictatorship with the same force mixture you'd use to destabilize a balkanized nation which already had heavily-armed rebels at your beck and call...

[Jeff White]

Field Artillery
September-October 2002
Pg. 10

Afghanistan: Joint And Coalition Fire Support In Operation Anaconda

Field Artillery Mission Statement (Revised): "To destroy, neutralize or suppress the enemy by cannon, rocket and missile fires and
to integrate all fires into joint and coalition operations."

By Lieutenant Colonel Christopher F. Bentley

The ability of the United States to wage unilateral military action is unquestionable. But the reality of modern warfare is that US military actions without coalition forces will be the exception rather than the rule. The mission statement of the Field Artillery should reflect this change.

A mission statement with the limit of "combined arms operations" neglects the changing dynamic of modern warfare and focuses fire supporters only on assets available to the US Army internally rather than on the entire spectrum available in joint and coalition operations.

To meet the intent of the Coalition Joint Task Force Mountain (CJTF-Mtn) commander (Commanding General of the 10th Mountain Division), fire supporters in the Afghanistan Joint Operations Area (AJOA) met daily to integrate and synchronize joint and coalition force operations. The successful employment of fires in the AJOA,
specifically during Operation Anaconda in the Shah-e-Kot Valley, demanded an unprecedented level of interoperability among disparate agencies and organizations.

The enemy is elusive, intelligent and committed and has few fiscal constraints. His tactics are similar to the enemy we faced in rotations at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana, but in an environment more rugged than that of the National Training Center
(NTC) at Fort Irwin, California.

Modern war has been defined as limited and carefully constrained in geography, scope, weaponry and effects (General Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War, New York: PublicAffairs, 2001, Page XXIV). Ongoing operations in the AJOA validate that description and the need to
revise the FA mission statement. When we revise the statement, we must revise the processes involved in meeting the commander’s intent.

Although much about Operation Anaconda is classified, I can address several important fire support lessons learned in targeting, fire support coordinating measures (FSCMs), fires execution and fire support team (FIST) resourcing and training. Undoubtedly in the future, more about this and other joint and coalition operations will be
discussed in this forum.

Targeting Challenges. During the planning and execution of Operation Anaconda, we employed a combination of forces and assets. Planning started with the targeting process and was refined throughout execution. Our targeting meetings were held daily at 1200, and the results were presented in a decision briefing for the commanding general. Our decide, detect, deliver and assess (D3A) targeting methodology is basically sound.
However, coalition and joint operations in the AJOA identified a shortcoming: we failed to precisely articulate desired effects as a means. The best analogy to explain what I mean is the continuing confusion between the artillery community and maneuver commanders about what constitutes a "destroyed" target—is the destruction 30 or 100 percent? Now apply this analogy to an operation involving a host of services and nations.

Failure to communicate explicitly the desired effects on a target may result in the wrong system or munition being used. This is especially crucial in joint and coalition operations where a broad array of platforms and munitions are available to produce effects on a given targets.

For example, as effective as precision munitions can be against certain types of targets, they are not the optimum munition for every situation. The enemy in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) is not presenting the classic Battle Command Training Program (BCTP) Warfighter exercise target set. We face an opponent who chooses, in most cases, not to line up against our strengths.

While, I believe our intelligence and targeting systems are fundamentally sound, we must adapt to an enemy who doesn’t present the type of tactical formations our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms are optimized to detect. In other words, the enemy "gets a vote."

The division analysis and control element (ACE) is the nucleus of the target decision-making process. The FA intelligence officer (FAIO) usually is an integral part of that team. However, during Operation Anaconda, the 10th Division also conducted simultaneous operations in 10
other countries, and we did not have the benefit of an FAIO in Afghanistan.

Within the CJTF-Mtn fire support element (FSE) we quickly identified a division of labor to accomplish the FAIO functions. The FAIO takes the intelligence generated by the ACE, applies his fire support knowledge and assesses those targets that require engagement. The FAIO is the subject matter expert on the capabilities and limitations of all assets, friendly and enemy. He then correlates the data and presents viable recommendations to the staff and commander. Units must not allow the FAIO slot to become an "economy of force" position. Of all the positions in the division FSE, the FAIO is, arguably, the most important.

We also must reassess our traditional target categories due to changing tactical, operational and strategic parameters. During Operation Anaconda, we were not allowed to recognize some targets in accordance with the prescribed target categories. For example, the enemy used trails
as the primary lines of communication (LOC) to
resupply, infiltrate and exfiltrate. Because LOCs identify strategic related infrastructure (such as bridges and railroads), legal constraints kept us from categorizing many LOCs as high-payoff targets (HPTs). Instead, we simply identified "trails" as HPTs.

Civilians on the battlefield or displaced civilians moving through the battlefield can be a virtual communications system for the enemy—a characteristic emerging on the modern battlefield. As we continue to define the contemporary operating environment (COE), we must identify
acceptable tactical target categories.

ISR Capabilities. We have an exceptional suite of ISR platforms. But what was clear early on was the immutable importance of terrain to an enemy who didn’t want to be found. Afghanistan’s rugged terrain is, in and of itself, a combat multiplier. It provided the enemy sanctuary, especially as he studied how we employed our systems. He learned that any large group of his forces quickly became a target list entry. Our aerial ISR platforms
did provide some "stand-off reconnaissance" that
helped us select helicopter landing zones (HLZs) and gave aircrews some idea about the terrain. Additionally, the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) supported our surveillance and reconnaissance (SR) teams as they infiltrated and exfiltrated.

But it was apparent that imagery intelligence (IMINT) and the Predator were not going to identify robust target sets to engage when facing an enemy employing asymmetrical operations. Once we put our SR teams in and established a more intricate human intelligence (HUMINT) network, we did a better job of confirming or denying targets and particular enemy courses of action (COAs).

Overall, we learned that the synchronization of all intelligence means is imperative; more importantly, we learned that incisive and thoughtful analysis must complement raw intelligence data. Our challenge was to work with a number of incongruent agencies that normally do not work together and paint a solid ISR "picture" for the commander —a picture he could use as the basis for action.

Actionable intelligence is crucial. After the Gulf War, General Norman H. Schwarzkopf stated, "If you took all the intelligence products that I had access to during the conduct of combat operations, you could easily fill several large warehouses; however, very little of it was actionable." What is notable about General Schwarzkopf’s quote is that he stated that after fighting on a linear, symmetrical battlefield against a nation- state enemy. Our intelligence challenges in AJOA were exacerbated many fold as we fought a non-state actor operating on an asymmetrical battlefield.

While the learning curve was steep, we developed solid ISR patterns that supported our targeting process. We were able to inject ourselves into the enemy’s decision cycle, forcing him to become a casualty, surrender or seek sanctuary in neighboring countries.

Fire Support Coordinating Measures. FSCMs, both permissive and restrictive, must facilitate the tactical ground commander’s ability to fire and maneuver. Doctrinally, permissive FSCMs facilitate movement while restrictive FSCMs protect friendly forces, innocent civilians and designated facilities, sites, etc. However, in a nonlinear environment involving multiple organizations and agencies, many of the FSCMs used were restrictive.

Restrictive FSCMs were the routine control measure to facilitate fires and maneuver during Operation Anaconda. This translated into well over 200 FSCMs across the various joint and coalition, conventional and unconventional forces.

Very quickly, the FSE made FSCM management a full time job for the FSE day and night shift NCOs. These stellar fire support sergeants adroitly managed a chaotic situation during Operation Anaconda; they coordinated and deconflicted FSCM as six million pounds of ordnance was dropped into a very tight valley.

In a joint and coalition environment, it is critical to clearly articulate the purposes, merits of and differences between restricted-fire areas (RFAs) and no-fire areas (NFAs). The enemy uses all terrain features, natural and manmade, to mask his movements and engage friendly forces.

During Operation Anaconda, the CJTF-Mtn FSE found the preponderance of issues with FSCMs originated with the other government agencies (OGAs) of the United States operating in theater. Most OGAs wanted large, comfortable NFAs over each of their positions—many of which covered key terrain of interest to joint and coalition unconventional warfare (UW) and SR teams. NFAs, by their nature, would deny these UW and SR teams the flexibility to engage targets in those areas. Instead, we used RFAs.

The use of RFAs allowed the approving ground tactical commander to engage targets as deemed necessary. RFAs facilitated UW and SR team movement and allowed us to set the conditions for future engagements.

The moral and legal imperative of the commander is to provide his soldiers all the resources they need to achieve victory. We wanted to establish permissive FSCMs over certain terrain features for the purpose of suppression; yet due to legal constraints, we were not allowed to establish doctrinal, permissive FSCMs.

Our goal was to achieve the desired effects and have the flexibility to deliver unobserved munitions on targets, as determined by the intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) and allsource intelligence. For this purpose, we were allowed to establish special engagement
zones (SEZs)—frankly, a euphemism for a free-fire area (FFA). Once the terminology was approved, we established SEZs along known and suspected infiltration and exfiltration routes. This became our "deep/interdiction" fight, setting the conditions for the close fight.

I am not advocating we include the term "SEZs" in our doctrine. We have established Army and joint doctrinal terminology, but there are times when working with joint and coalition forces that the doctrinal terms may not be appropriate or understood. It is imperative to establish proper terminology early, ensuring all forces understand
the meaning. This terminology must be based on the enemy’s most dangerous COA instead of his most likely COA.

Fires Execution. During the first 24 hours of Operation Anaconda, we serviced more than 30 troops in contact with close air support missions. As successful as we were, we must not extol the efforts of fixed-wing support alone. All available organic ground indirect fire support systems were employed during Operation Anaconda. Of the 34 mortars available to Task Force Rakkasan, 26 were employed in support of task force troops in the
Shah-e- Kot Valley. These systems provided timely,
responsive, all-weather suppressive fires in support of ground forces. The remaining eight tubes were positioned as force protection assets at Kandahar and Bagram.

Within the first 48 hours of Operation Anaconda, the commander of Task Force Rakkasan recognized the need for responsive, massed fires with multiple shell-fuze combinations. The task force established a "mortar battery," combining 120-mm and 81-mm mortars and positioning the battery within the constraints of the weapon systems. The task force FSE provided tactical command and control, while the CJTFMtn FSE established procedural and doctrinal control with joint and coalition forces.

The time constraint placed on CJTFMtn in planning hindered the responsiveness of the targeting process. In the AJOA, a majority of the fire support assets available were aviation and subject to the air tasking order (ATO). The ATO required aviation assets be coordinated 36 hours out.

There was little time for flexibility in the sequence of the daily targeting meeting with all coalition and joint liaison officers (LNOs), the approval of the HPT list (HPTL)and the pilot’s pre-mission briefing. The ATO is the best mechanism available to coordinate the hundreds of human and mechanical pieces involved in getting air on station, but it is conversely inflexible and not well-suited to support a nonlinear, asymmetrical battlefield.

The ATO must be flexible enough to change aircraft and munitions packages as the intelligence picture changes by the minute. Increasing the flexibility of the ATO cycle is imperative to responsiveness in today’s COE.

Precision-guided munitions (PGMs) are not "silver bullets" for every target engagement. The array of armament packages in any ATO should be structured to respond rapidly to any situation.

In terms of quantities and percentages, more precision munitions have been dropped in support of Operation Enduring Freedom than any other military operation to date. A large percentage of the targets struck with these munitions do not fit into the more traditional target category of high-value targets—those targets that affect the
enemy’s centers of gravity. Traditionally, high-value targets are bridges, factories, military headquarters, communications nodes, motor pools, etc. But in Operation Anaconda, the targets we needed to engage were enemy maneuver elements on foot, mortar and heavy machinegun positions and specific terrain features.

Our PGMs were very effective against fixed targets; however, not all targets on the Anaconda battlefield were stationary. PGMs take too long to arm and deliver to attack small mobile targets and targets of opportunity. Although PGMs give the US military an unparalleled ability to strike any point on the earth precisely, the time required to mensurate a target’s coordinates and determine the desired mean point of impact (DMPI) to ensure the
PGMs can hit the target is generally a luxury troops in contact don’t have.

The Army AH-64 Apache helicopter performed exceptionally well in Operation Anaconda. However, the limiting factors of altitude and terrain clearly detracted from what these helicopters were designed for: to stand off and attack armored formations. They were brilliant in their air assault escort roles, allowing us the flexibility to position fixed-wing aircraft in orbits near ground troops.

The optimum USAF close air support (CAS) platform was the A-10 Warthog. The A-10’s capability to deliver a variety of munitions responsively and perform the duties of a forward air controller-airborne (FAC-A) greatly enhanced the ground force’s ability to fire and maneuver.

[Jeff White]

Bomber and strike aircraft also provided CAS during Operation Anaconda, but these aircraft were limited by the inherent design of their airframes. In some cases, the inabilities of aircraft to break self-imposed USAF altitude restrictions, slow their strike speed down or strafe the
battlefield (the latter in the case of the bombers) restricted these aircrafts’ abilities to deliver timely munitions in close support of troops on the ground.

The AC-130 gunship emerged as the platform of choice at night. Its effectiveness was amazing. The enemy began referring to it as the "Spitting Witch." Every light infantry division needs an AC-130 squadron. These platforms should be available for all light infantry training and
military operations around the world.

FIST Resource and Training. Our FIST soldiers must understand how to employ the AC-130, and our forward observers (FOs) must be certified—not just
trained—to employ all CAS assets, thereby making the fire supporter more universal. If providing precision fires means "employing fires precisely where needed in the appropriate volume to achieve the desired outcome" (Major General Michael D. Maples, "Looking Back 200 Years and Forward to Continue the Legacy," March-April 2002, Page 1), then the Army fire supporter must become the premier observer. In the article "Universal Observers: Punching our FIST into the 21st Century" (May-June 1979), author Lieutenant Colonel Vance Nannini outlined this need.

Our young soldiers are the best in the world, yet they still don’t have the best resources and training to employ fire support from all platforms—not just fires that come out of a tube or launcher. Once we resource and train universal observers, we will be able to provide precision fires with precision maneuver, making the operational and tactical land power decisive.

Part of resourcing our fire supporters is effective communications capabilities. Operation Anaconda was not an FM "push to talk" fight. Our FSEs and FISTs in the fight did not have the communication packages to talk to all delivery platforms. We must look for other options, such as the MBITR M-117 radio. This system has FM, UHF, VHF and satellite communications (SATCOM) capabilities in one package with a greater range than current radios. Additionally, it runs on the same AA batteries the FISTer carries for his night observation devices (NODs), precision lightweight global receivers (PLGRs), etc.

In Operation Anaconda where the vast majority of fire support is provided by air assets, the FIST is dependent on the USAF TACP for Air Force support. Independent SR and UW teams were all operating simultaneously and all demanding the same fire support resources. If the TACP
is taken out of the fight, in most cases there are
not redundant certified observers or equipment to fill the gap. An example is when 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry (1-87 IN, 10th Mountain Division, part of Task Force Rakkasan) took mortar rounds on its HLZ five miles from the nearest TACP and could not call in Air Force air assets.

We should send fire support officers (FSOs) and fire support NCOs (FSNCOs) to the Joint Fire Power Control Course (JFCC) during the FA Officer Basic Course (FAOBC) and FA Basic NCO Course (FABNCOC), respectively. At the unit level, leaders must be responsible for sustaining their training and qualification as "TACPs."

Our FOs must be certified as ground forward air controllers (GFACs). This may be a sore spot with the Air Force, but I believe it to be nonnegotiable. Very few of our FOs are trained to be universal observers. And until they are, we must do a better job of integrating our USAF
TACP into ground maneuver training and operations. We cannot continue to operate with an add-on conglomerate of Air Force personnel, especially during combat operations. We must train and fight as a team.

In Operation Anaconda, the brigade and battalion task force FSOs and FISTs were at "the tip of the spear," and they performed magnificently. However, to ensure continued quality, we must fill these positions with our most experienced officers. The brigade FSO position must be the second branch-qualifying job for a major (after
battalion S3 or XO), and the battalion FSO should be a post-battery command captain.

As a branch, we must clearly articulate the significance and importance of these critical fire support positions to the Army. The brigade FSO position must be seen as our "vote" for future battalion command. Using post-battery command captains as battalion FSOs raises their
credibility with battalion task force commanders. To ensure the quality of these fire support positions will take discipline and patience from the Field Artillery community. We owe the ground tactical commander our best and brightest. Conclusion. The best intelligence or assessment capability available to CJTFMtn continues to be the soldier on the ground. For all the advantages provided by the Predator, Global Hawk, P3AIP, U2, and all the other high-tech national assets, nothing came close to the intelligence yielded during sensitive site exploitation (SSE) operations conducted by soldiers at the end of Operation Anaconda. The lessons learned in the AJOA continue to emerge as we prosecute the War on Terrorism. Fire supporters proved, once again, that trained soldiers and leaders help the maneuver commander bring synergy and firepower to bear. Soldier power is hard to replicate by
any other means.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher F. Bentley, until recently, served as the Deputy Fire Support Coordinator (DFSCOORD) in the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York, deploying to Afghanistan for Operation Anaconda. He now commands the 3d Battalion, 6th Field Artillery, 10th Mountain Division. He also has served as a Fire Support Officer and Fire Support Coordinator in the 25th Infantry Division
(Light), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and the 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina; and as an Observer/Controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, Louisiana. Among
other assignments, he commanded B Battery, 7th Battalion, 8th Field Artillery in the 25th Division, and served as the S3 for the 1st Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment in the 82d Airborne Division.

[Jeff White]

London Daily Telegraph
March 26, 2003

US Puts Tactics Before Tanks With A Fraction Of Schwarzkopf's Force

By Ben Rooney, Defence Staff

When American ground troops take on the "might" of the Iraqi army, the attacking force may be less than one fifth the size of the forces that General Norman
Schwarzkopf used to rout the Republican Guard in 1991. But, say Pentagon planners, it will still defeat them.

General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, is planning to deploy his small force in a revolutionary new way, which, if successful, will transform the conduct of future
battles.

Nevertheless, should things not go to plan, and resistance from the Republican Guard prove more tenacious than expected, the Pentagon is also ready to fight a more
traditional war.

Concerns have been raised about the size of Franks's force, pointing to the fact that the 1991 liberation of Kuwait against only a part of Saddam's army took a force of
more than 11 divisions, with some 2,000 tanks and around 550,000 troops.

By contrast, Gen Franks has the 230 tanks, 130 AH64 Apache helicopters, and 18,000 men of the 3rd Infantry Division, 70,000 men, 58 AH1 Super Cobra attack
helicopters and about 200 tanks of I Marine Expeditionary Force, and the 270 helicopters and 15,000 men of the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) division. The British 1st
Armoured Division is not involved in the Battle for Baghdad.

But, say US military planners, number-crunching paints a misleading picture.

It masks the glaring difference in tactics and technology between America's modern and mobile force, and an Iraqi army trapped in a Soviet-era battle plan with grossly
inferior equipment, no strategic mobility, no air power, no meaningful reconnaissance, no command and control, and no ability to seize the initiative. All the Iraqis can do
is wait for the battle.

"The first they will know of the attack is when they start to die," said a US military commentator yesterday.

Furthermore, by the time the US ground troops go into battle with the Republican Guard, the RAF and US air force will have spent days attacking them.

US war-fighting strategy is undergoing a bold transformation, away from the Powell doctrine of the 1991 war, with its emphasis on huge armoured formations.

The new strategy, known in military parlance as Rapid Decisive Operations, puts a huge emphasis on technology which allows US forces to combine air force ground
attacks, helicopters and fast-moving infantry and tanks in a single and overwhelmingly aggressive onslaught.

The strategy does not call for the attackers to destroy all the dug-in Iraqis, but to outmanoeuvre them, cut them off and leave them with no choice but to capitulate.

US standby reinforcements are already on their way, the most high-profile of which is the 21,000-strong 4th Infantry Division, which was originally going to lead the
attack against Baghdad from the north until Turkey blocked its deployment.

The 35 cargo ships laden with the division's heavy armour and equipment will not reach Kuwait until early next month at the soonest, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

Also on standby are 15,000 men and 230 tanks from 1st Armoured Division, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, 17,000 men and 300 tanks from the 1st Cavalry Division, in
Texas, and 4,700 men and 300 tanks and armoured vehicles from the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment in Colorado.

[Jeff White]

Chicago Tribune
March 25, 2003

Critics Worry About 'Desert Lite'

By Stephen J. Hedges, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- With U.S. troops stretched farther and thinner in their quick march to Baghdad, military experts are scrutinizing the much-debated decision to deploy
a relatively lean force to topple Saddam Hussein and subdue Iraq.

The force of nearly 300,000 U.S. troops now in the Iraq region--along with 45,000 from Britain and 2,000 from Australia--is a little more than half the size that fought in
the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

This time, though, the war's aims are more ambitious and the resistance from Iraqi troops, while scattered, appears more resolute.

"We do have a problem," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This is `Desert Lite.' As they said in
briefings before the war, this force is probably adequate for the job, but it doesn't leave much room for setbacks or sandstorms."

A similar view was voiced by retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division 12 years ago in the gulf, when asked on BBC Television
whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had made a mistake by not sending more troops to start the offensive.

"Yes, sure. I think everybody told him that," McCaffrey replied.

"I think he thought these were U.S. generals with their feet planted in World War II, that didn't understand the new way of warfare."

U.S. forces, led by the 3rd Infantry Division, have managed to advance to within 50 miles of Baghdad. Apache helicopters are operating out of a makeshift base near
An Najaf in central Iraq. Marines are also advancing from the southeast.

But the U.S.-British land force has been forced into firefights to protect the flanks of a long, slender supply corridor wending up through southeastern Iraq. That supply
line is getting longer, and it traverses a region that commanders thought would be friendlier.

The notion of a northern front made up of the 17,000 soldiers, tanks and artillery of the 4th Infantry Division has withered in a Turkish-American dispute over U.S.
basing troops in Turkey to send over the border into Iraq. Instead, their weapons and supplies have been diverted to Kuwait, but they won't be fielded for about another
week.

Franks confident of size

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of allied forces in Iraq, and other Pentagon officials insist they have assembled a large enough force to overwhelm Hussein's military,
particularly his vaunted Republican Guard.

A top Army commander reiterated that at the Pentagon on Monday, just a day after clashes left at least nine Marines dead and 12 Army soldiers presumed captured or
killed.

"Gen. Franks has incredible flexibility right now," said Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "In fact he has a heavy division, the 3rd ID
[Infantry Division], which has moved with extraordinary speed, more than 200 miles in a short amount of time."

Flexibility has become a byword of the invasion force, and the battle planners of the Central Command have had to shift their forces and priorities with changes in
political considerations, weather and enemy resistance.

But the size of the force in Iraq has long been a contentious issue between command staff and Rumsfeld's office. Many Army war planners were urging that a larger,
fully assembled force would be necessary to invade Iraq and assure a rapid victory. That would be more in line with Secretary of State Colin Powell's well-known
dictum of using overwhelming force to assure victory.

"We have never done something like this with this modest a force at such a distance from its bases," McCaffrey said. Nonetheless, he emphasized he believed the U.S.
would win a commanding victory.

Rumsfeld has been pressing the military to adopt lighter and faster ground forces. He holds that maneuverability and superior weaponry can pack the same punch that
heavy armored forces used to.

Ground force of 250,000

In the end, Franks settled on a ground force of nearly 250,000, though only a quarter to a third of those are combat troops.

The Iraq invasion force is unique not just for its size but also for its staggered start. Some forces began the attack while others still were on their way to the Persian
Gulf.

Notably, the 101st Airborne Division was still in camp in Kuwait when the first invasion force moved over the Iraqi border. And it was several more days before the
101st moved.

Some of the buildup's size was necessitated by limitations at the port in Kuwait, the only country close to Iraq that would allow U.S. forces to land. But part of it also
attributable to the administration's belief that a force of 250,000 could defeat Iraq's Republican Guard and its less capable regular army.

Five days of war, however, have shifted coalition thinking.

"We have got to recognize that it is not simply the front lines that are vulnerable," said Geoffrey Hoon, Britain's defense minister. "As we have seen, there are risks that
those behind the front line will face, and certainly we need to adjust our force protection to take account of those risks."

[Jeff White]

Washington Post
March 25, 2003
Pg. 17

Questions Raised About Invasion Force

Some Ex-Gulf War Commanders Say U.S. Needs More Troops, Another Armored Division

By Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writers

With the Pentagon now rushing thousands of troops from Texas to the Persian Gulf, a number of seasoned Gulf War ground commanders said yesterday that the U.S.
invasion force moving rapidly to Baghdad is too small and should have included at least one additional heavy Army division.

"In my judgment, there should have been a minimum of two heavy divisions and an armored cavalry regiment on the ground -- that's how our doctrine reads," said retired
Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during the 1991 Gulf War.

McCaffrey's comments are part of a heated debate underway among current and former ground commanders and strategists about a war plan built upon the concept of
a "rolling start" -- in which combat actions begin before the arrival of all ready forces, which are then brought forward or held back, depending on how the battle
proceeds.

The 21,000 soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., could begin arriving at staging areas in Kuwait almost immediately. But the 35 cargo ships
laden with the division's heavy armor and equipment will not complete their journey from the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal and Red Sea, and begin arriving in
Kuwait until the first week of April at the earliest, defense officials said yesterday.

Those ships had been waiting for weeks off the coast of Turkey to unload, as the original war plan called for the 4th to set up a base there and open a northern front.
From there, the division was to advance on Tikrit, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's hometown, and Baghdad, thereby forcing the Iraqi military to defend its capital from
two directions.

That plan was abandoned after Turkey's parliament refused to allow U.S. forces to launch from Turkish soil. President Bush then ordered the invasion to begin last
week with only one heavy division, the 3rd Infantry in Kuwait, on the ground, forgoing the second heavy division that McCaffrey and others have thought critical to
beginning the war with a massive blow.

How large a force is necessary to invade Iraq has been a point of contention for months between some ground commanders, particularly those in the Army, and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. He insisted that air power, information dominance and speed enable the U.S. military to achieve much greater effect with a
smaller, more agile force.

The loss of the 4th Infantry Division from the original invasion force did not alter Rumsfeld's calculus. He and others cautioned against waiting for the division to arrive
in Kuwait before invading, with hot summer weather approaching in the Iraqi desert and delay seen as affording Hussein more time to prepare.

"It is my position that we would be much better off if we had another heavy division on the ground, and an armored cavalry regiment to deal with this mission in the
rear," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas G. Rhame, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division during the Gulf War. "It's not serious, but life would be a lot simpler if
the secretary had another front open, which he was denied."

Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice chief of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that he does not believe the U.S.
invasion force is too small and too light.

Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the war in Iraq, has "incredible flexibility," McChrystal said, with the heavy 3rd Infantry Division pushing rapidly to
Baghdad supported by the 101st Airborne Division, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and a British division.

Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, now a Pentagon consultant, agreed with that assessment. He said those units -- all of which have been reinforced with
additional troops and equipment -- represent "more combat power on the ground than is generally recognized."

One Army officer who was involved in some aspects of the war plan said air power more than offsets the firepower that would have been provided by the Abrams
tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems of the 4th Infantry Division.

"Air power roams at will over the battlefield and can cope with any significant threat [that] concentrates to disrupt the rear," the officer said, adding that Iraqi Republican
Guard divisions are "incapable of any resistance other than static defense."

He also contended that the Iraqi military never successfully attacked the U.S. flanks and will not be able to do so now.

But McCaffrey said that long, unprotected supply lines reaching from Kuwait all the way to Baghdad have been shown to be vulnerable. The ambush of an Army
maintenance convoy Sunday resulted in seven deaths and five U.S. prisoners of war.

Army doctrine, he said, calls for armored cavalry regiments to patrol the flanks of the advancing force and protect the terrain it has traversed. Military police battalions,
he said, are typically used to patrol bridges and intersections to be controlled by military police battalions.

Such forces have received deployment orders, he added, but they are still back in the United States, waiting to get into the fight. As for the adequacy of air power,
McCaffrey said it cannot substitute for the powerful combination of M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter gunships
when it comes to a confrontation with Republican Guard divisions, particularly when they are dispersed.

"When you package it the right way, the Bradley-Abrams-artillery-Apache team [enables the U.S.] to stand up to enormous combat pressure and not lose many troops,"
McCaffrey said.

His fear at this point, he added, is that waiting for reinforcements for a final attack on Baghdad could give the Iraqis time to recover. "You don't get up there and let
them get their nerve back," McCaffrey said. "You got to go in there and bust their chops badly, and let the speed and momentum and violence overwhelm them."

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a commander in the Gulf War, agreed that another heavy division on the ground would be highly desirable.

"The stability of the liberated areas is clearly as issue," he said. "The postwar transition has to begin immediately in the wake of the attacking forces, and they seem to be
short of forces for those important missions at this time."

[Jeff White]

New York Times
March 24, 2003

Rumsfeld Says Important Targets Have Been Avoided

By Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON, March 23 — Senior American commanders have avoided bombing as many as three dozen high-priority Iraqi targets for fear of civilian casualties,
making it harder to achieve some of the air campaign's important goals, military officials said today.

These targets, mostly in Baghdad, include the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, television and communications facilities that allow the Iraqi regime to stay on the airwaves, and
the Rashid Hotel, which American intelligence analysts say has a secret underground communications bunker, the officials said.

Even as allied warplanes pounded military sites in Baghdad today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld condemned Iraq's use of "human shields" at various targets.
He said the tactic had prevented the American-led air war from cutting off the ability of President Saddam Hussein's regime to broadcast over state-run television and
radio.

"It would be highly desirable to have completely, totally ended any ability on their ability to communicate," Mr. Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They have
put their communications systems in downtown Baghdad, and commingled civil action, civil activities with military activities. And they have done it in very close
proximity to large numbers of innocent men, women and children."

Mr. Rumsfeld said, though, that the four-day air campaign was going "exceedingly well," and some military planners said that putting some "high-collateral damage"
targets off limits, at least for now, was not seriously hampering the overall military campaign.

But other officials acknowledged that allowing the Iraqi leadership to continue to broadcast its own briefings from obvious targets like the Defense Ministry, or to show
pictures of dead or captured American forces, ran counter to the larger goal of isolating the regime and its military high command.

The risk to civilians is not the only issue commanders are worrying about. Senior officials also voiced concern about destroying the same broadcast system that
American-led forces would use soon after they seize Baghdad to communicate quickly with the Iraqi people.

Senior Pentagon officials have said for weeks that Iraq was putting civilians in military buildings and putting military equipment, including artillery and fighter jets, at or
near schools, mosques and hospitals, to protect their command posts and arms from attack.

Mr. Rumsfeld and his top military advisers have sought to portray the allied air campaign as a model of both precision and sensitivity to civilian casualties, especially in
urban settings like Baghdad. There are practical and political reasons for this careful action.

In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the American bombing of a Baghdad bunker used by both Iraqi intelligence officers and hundreds of Iraqi civilians angered Arabs in
neighboring countries and caused the Pentagon to suspend bombing in Baghdad for most of the rest of the war.

"We do everything in our power to keep our targeting as precision-based as it can be, always knowing that there are — there is room for problems that could take
place," said Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, a deputy chief of the United States Central Command.

Every target on Pentagon's strike list undergoes a rigorous review. Using a sophisticated new computer program, military planners estimate the blast area of a particular
weapon, and then tailor the attack accordingly, matching the size of the bomb, its detonation fuse, its angle of attack and the time of day for the strike to minimize the risk
to civilians. Nonetheless, even precision-guided weapons miss their mark 7 to 10 percent of the time, planners say.

Two senior officers familiar with the process of choosing targets said that planners are working to devise ways to attack the restricted targets in Baghdad without unduly
risking civilians. "It's a call that General Franks will make, and he'll make it at a time of his choosing," Mr. Rumsfeld said, referring to the allied commander, Gen.
Tommy R. Franks.

"Ultimately, if it's a high enough value target, you accept a higher risk of casualties," said one senior Defense Department official.

As the air and ground campaigns advanced, Pentagon officials said no chemical or biological weapons had been found yet, but commanders were following up tantalizing
leads.

Military officials said that two captured Iraqi generals were providing information about a suspected chemical weapons facility in Najaf, where American forces today
secured a suspected chemical factory.

General Abizaid said there were reports of Iraqi forces near Al Kut armed with chemical weapons. Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said a raid on an Iraqi installation in western Iraq turned up a trove of documents that could detail portions of Iraq's suspected chemical weapons program.

General Abizaid predicted that coalition forces would find weapons of mass destruction "once we have had an opportunity to occupy Baghdad, stabilize Iraq, and talk to
Iraqis that have participated in the hiding and in the development of it."

Mr. Rumsfeld said on CBS's "Face the Nation, " that American intelligence reports indicated that Iraqi forces "have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have
dispersed them, and that they are weaponized, and that, in one case at least, that the command and control arrangements have been established."

Mr. Rumsfeld also said that secret surrender talks continued with Iraqi commanders and civilians officials, like intelligence officers. "We have people on the ground in
the country in a variety of locations," he said. "They are talking to senior military leaders. And in a number of instances those leaders have communicated how they
thought it would be appropriate for them to surrender, and they have done so."

While none of the Republican Guard units had surrendered, Mr. Rumsfeld said that could change as American forces approach the Iraqi capital. "The closer we get to
Baghdad," Mr. Rumsfeld said, "the greater the pressure, the more likely that they'll tip."

[Jeff White]

Washington Post
March 24, 2003
Pg. 28

War's Gruff 'Composer' Strikes Confident Chord

Rumsfeld Puts on Public Face of Certainty While Shaping Bold Battlefield Strategy With Franks

By Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writers

Since hostilities began in Iraq five days ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has assumed a familiar pose as the Bush administration's chief war spokesman,
exhibiting the air of resolve that made him enormously popular with the American public during the war in Afghanistan.

But Rumsfeld is more than just the public face of the war. To a great extent, he is also the force behind the innovative -- and risky -- way it is being fought. During the
past year, he has pushed the U.S. military to devise a campaign built around a lighter, faster moving force, the simultaneous application of air power and ground forces,
and an unprecedented emphasis on Special Operations forces.

Despite early tension, Rumsfeld and his battlefield commander, Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, have by all accounts developed an
extraordinarily close relationship since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They begin each day with a conference call or, in recent weeks, a secure video
teleconference.

"Think of Rumsfeld as the composer and Franks as the orchestra leader," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who knows both men and also serves on
the Defense Policy Board. "In a review of the National Symphony, the conductor deserves as much credit as Mozart or Beethoven if the evening works."

Behind the scenes, analysts inside and outside the Pentagon said, Rumsfeld is often plagued by doubts and what he often sees as a lack of good information. He
questions his commanders' assumptions and worries about missed opportunities. But in his public role, he projects nothing but certainty as chief talking head, be it from
the Pentagon podium or on Sunday morning talk shows.

Yesterday morning, amid some of the worst news of the war so far, Rumsfeld maintained an attitude of unshaken confidence. Appearing in rapid succession on NBC's
"Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation" before doing a lengthy, live interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, he never departed from the refrain that Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein's government, as he told Blitzer, "is gone, it's over."

Rumsfeld has emerged as the administration's chief spokesman at war briefings, said Eliot Cohen, an expert in military strategy at Johns Hopkins University, "because he
does them better than anyone else."

"He doesn't weasel and prevaricate," said Cohen, author of the recent book, "Supreme Command," that describes the essence of successful civilian wartime leadership.
"If he doesn't know, he says he doesn't know. If he can't tell you, he just says, 'I can't tell you.' It really does strike a chord with the American people."

Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington think thank, said: "Rumsfeld has at least half a dozen qualities that cumulatively make him
a nearly perfect briefer. He's entertaining. He controls the audience. Because he controls the audience, it drives him to the issues he wants to talk about. He's
uncommonly candid. And the finally, he has a very straightforward, clear, consistent view. There is no diplomacy or ambiguity in the way he states his convictions."

Those who disagree with Rumsfeld -- particularly in other countries -- can find him abrasive and even insulting. Even some senior Bush administration officials
complained that Rumsfeld's dismissal of Germany and France as "old Europe" was not helpful when the United States was trying to build diplomatic support for an
invasion of Iraq.

"His gruff, combative and often arrogant style has won the respect of the American people but has had disastrous consequences overseas," said Richard H. Kohn, a
military historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

But Americans often like their leaders tough and unapologetic, and Rumsfeld certainly stayed that way yesterday. Asked about the U.S. prisoners of war during the
CNN interview broadcast worldwide, Rumsfeld said: "There have been prisoners taken in every war since the beginning of mankind. . . . The course of the war is clear.
The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone, it's over. It will not be there. The people of Iraq need to know it will not be long before they are
liberated."

On "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert asked Rumsfeld about 200,000 war protesters who gathered on Saturday in New York. "Well, this is a free country," Rumsfeld
said. "People can have their own views, and they always have in every war there have been protesters. The American-firsters filled Madison Square Garden repeatedly
with thousands of people before World War II, while Europe was in flames, while millions of Jews were being killed. . . . It's a natural human reaction for people to want
to avoid war."

Rumsfeld briefs the media far more than any of his Pentagon predecessors, which could put him in the cross hairs of public criticism if the war turns out badly, analysts
note.Problems on the battlefield could also expose simmering tensions at the Pentagon between Rumsfeld on the one hand and the Joint Staff and military services on
the other. Many senior officers say privately that Rumsfeld has treated them with disdain and become, in his quest to reassert civilian control of the military, far too
involved in micromanaging the war.

There have been widely reported tensions between Franks and Rumsfeld, particularly early on. One officer present during a conference call between the two recounts
how the general became so angry at one point that he actually cursed the defense secretary. But senior defense officials and military officers who have watched the
relationship evolve said there is now a deep bond between the two.

Indeed, analysts inside and outside the Pentagon also warn against a tendency to overstate Rumsfeld's influence on the war plan at the expense of Franks and the
Central Command staff.

Because the Central Command initially proposed a much heavier and more conventional plan for the invasion of Iraq, many analysts have credited Rumsfeld with
insisting upon use of a lighter force built around speed, precision, agility and simultaneity.

Although those are all qualities Rumsfeld clearly championed, senior military officers and other analysts who know both men say Franks has always been an innovative
military thinker going back to his days as an artillery commander at the 1st Cavalry Division. Later, they said, he developed an appreciation for air power and
inter-service "jointness" as a subordinate commander at Central Command before taking the helm in 2000. Rumsfeld and Franks, Gingrich said, should be viewed as a
team "rather than as professor and student."

"Tommy is very loyal to the secretary," said one senior military officer. "You know he must have challenges and you know there must be disagreements, but he keeps
those to himself. I think they have developed the kind of relationship you want to have between a secretary and a wartime commander. They trust each other. They talk
to each other. They can share their ideas and also their fears."

But fear is not something Rumsfeld expresses in public. At one point yesterday on "Meet the Press," Rumsfeld was asked about the warning from Pope John Paul II --
an outspoken opponent of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq -- that those who go to war assume a grave responsibility before God.

"It's true," Rumsfeld said, unfazed. "It is a fair statement. War is the last choice. President Bush has said that repeatedly, and he has made every effort humanly possible
to avoid it."

[Tamara]

Are you going to stop posting cannon cocker articles about how "The Artillery Branch Needs Funding For The XYZ-2000 Because The Air Force Sucks" and return to the discussion? I appreciate the back issues of the Army Times, but it reaches the MEGO point sooner or later... I realize that your particular gig in the military leaves you with a slight bias, but come on. ;)

(PS: Citing the Washington Post doesn't help your case. ;) :p )

[Jeff White]

Washington Post
March 30, 2003
Pg. 19

Rumsfeld Faulted For Troop Dilution

Military Officers: Forces in Iraq Are Inadequate

By Vernon Loeb, Washington Post Staff Writer

Current and former U.S. military officers are blaming Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his aides for the inadequate troop strength on the ground in Iraq,
saying the civilian leaders "micromanaged" the deployment plan out of mistrust of the generals and an attempt to prove their own theory that a light, maneuverable force
could handily defeat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

More than a dozen officers interviewed, including a senior officer in Iraq, said Rumsfeld took significant risks by leaving key units in the United States and Germany at
the start of the war. That resulted in an invasion force that is too small, strung out, underprotected, undersupplied and awaiting tens of thousands of reinforcements who
will not get there for weeks.

"The civilians in [Rumsfeld's office] vetoed the priority and sequencing of joint forces into the region -- as it was requested by the war fighters -- and manipulated it to
support their priorities," said an officer who asked not to be quoted by name. "When they did this, it de-synchronized not only the timing of the arrival of people and their
organic equipment, but also the proper mix of combat, combat support and combat support units."

Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Infantry Division during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said yesterday that he told a senior member of
Rumsfeld's staff shortly before the war that the secretary's office had to stop meddling in the deployment process and let Army commanders have the units they
believed they needed to fight the war.

Rumsfeld, McCaffrey said, "sat on each element for weeks and wanted an explanation for every unit called up out of the National Guard and Reserve and argued about
every 42-man maintenance detachment. Why would a businessman want to deal with the micromanagement of the force? The bottom line is, a lack of trust that these
Army generals knew what they were doing."

Responding to criticism, Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference Friday that U.S.
forces were following a war plan that was developed by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of Central Command, and agreed to by leaders of all the military services.
Myers called it "brilliant."

Aides close to Rumsfeld said any changes made were for the better. "The original war plan for Iraq was really awful," a senior official said yesterday. "It was basically
Cold War planning, and we're not in the Cold War anymore. Rumsfeld, like a lot of people, asked a lot of questions designed to produce the best, most flexible plan."

Briefing reporters yesterday at the Pentagon, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, deputy operations director for the Joint Chiefs, insisted that the move this week to send an
armored division, an armored cavalry division and an armored cavalry regiment to Iraq was not a reaction to battlefield conditions, but part of the long-planned rolling
start.

"This force flow was determined months ago, to include the order of forces moving and when they would go, and deployment orders were signed before we even were
sure that we would have to have hostilities," McChrystal said. "So, if anybody takes an inference that this is reinforcements based upon what's happened in the first
week of the war, that would be incorrect."

But many officers insist that the United States would have had a much heavier force on the ground when the war began had Rumsfeld refrained from constantly
changing Central Command's troop deployment plan, known in military parlance as the Time Phased Force and Deployment Data (TPFDD).

One senior defense official said those changes delayed deployments by as much as 50 days and meant a slower start for three heavy divisions: the 4th Infantry, whose
equipment is heading for Kuwait after being denied a base in Turkey; the 1st Cavalry, which has not started moving from its base at Fort Hood, Tex., and the 1st
Armored, which is at its base in Germany.

"I know the 1st Armored Division was delayed," an officer said. "They were scheduled in pretty early. I don't know why, but I just know they were stood down.
Otherwise, they would have been there by now."

The officer said he discussed the need to secure rear supply lines weeks ago with Army Lt. Gen. Scott Wallace, commander of the 5th Corps inside Iraq, and that
Wallace wanted the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment assigned to that mission. The unit is moving from its base at Fort Polk, La. -- a week after irregular Iraqi forces
from Saddam's Fedayeen began attacking supply convoys and other U.S. forces from the rear.

Rumsfeld's aides said there were legitimate reasons for not deploying the units sooner. "There were people with antiquated thinking and processes," the senior defense
official said, "who wanted to deploy people and wreck their lives and move them even before we knew there was going to be a war -- because it's easier that way."

But Rumsfeld's detractors acknowledge that the defense secretary probably would not be taking so much criticism if the government of Turkey had allowed the 4th
Infantry Division to be based there. That would have put hundreds of the Army's highest-tech Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles in place to begin a powerful
and rapid advance toward Baghdad from the north.

Instead, 35 ships carrying the division's equipment remained off the coast of Turkey for three weeks after Turkey's parliament first rejected a basing agreement and as
Bush administration officials worked to persuade Turkish officials to change their minds.

The ships were finally sent through the Suez Canal after the war began when it became clear the Turkish rejection was final.

With those ships now heading for Kuwait, where they will not finish offloading for two to three weeks, the advance on Hussein's capital is being spearheaded by one
heavy mechanized Army division, the 3rd Infantry, which has advanced more than 200 miles from Kuwait in concert with lighter forces from the Army's 101st Airborne
Division, the Marines and the British.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Rumsfeld understandably delayed calling up some
guard and reserve units and deploying units from the United States for "political" reasons early in the year as the Bush administration pursued a diplomatic solution for
disarming Iraq through January and February.

Shortly before the war began, Cordesman said, a senior U.S. military official conceded at a briefing that the lack of a northern front and the delayed deployment of some
units for political reasons "did mean more risks and a lack of some of the forces needed if Iraq did not weaken in the south."

But "making Rumsfeld the scapegoat before the major battles begin, and most of the evidence is present, is scarcely fair," Cordesman said.

"Rumsfeld may or may not have much to answer for once all of the facts and the outcome of the war is known -- but Rumsfeld does not deserve virtually all of the
present blame he is getting."

One Army general agreed, saying the TPFDD deployment plan -- a computer printout the size of a telephone book listing the exact sequence for moving hundreds of
units, large and small -- was rigid and archaic. But the general said that a difficult situation was made worse once Rumsfeld and his aides starting rejiggering the plan.

In addition to warning Rumsfeld's staff about micromanaging the TPFDD, McCaffrey said he warned a senior defense official shortly before the war began that
although the Pentagon's assumptions on how strongly Iraq would resist were probably sound, planners were risking a "political and military disaster" if they were wrong.

"They chose to go into battle with a ground combat capability that was inadequate, unless their assumptions proved out," McCaffrey said.

[Jeff White]

Business Week
April 7, 2003
Pg. 30

Digital War -- The Strategy

The Doctrine Of Digital War

How high tech is shaping America's military strategy: the pros and cons

When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, mindful of America's two-month rout of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, sat down with war planners to prepare for a
U.S.-led thrust into Iraq, he had a vision of how the unfolding conflict would play out. A devotee of a new theory of warfare that places enormous stress on air power,
computer communications, and small, agile ground forces, the Pentagon chief began work on a battle plan that was a marvel of technological prowess.

Ever since he joined the Administration, fresh from a second career as a successful CEO, Rumsfeld had been fighting skirmishes with his military brass. His notion of
"transformation" -- Rumspeak for a leaner, more technologically driven force that leapfrogs generations of Cold War weaponry -- met with resistance from generals and
congressional porkmeisters alike. Defenders of the status quo insisted that future wars would be won the old-fashioned way -- with lethal firepower and plenty of U.S.
grunts on the ground. The debates intensified as the prospect of war in Iraq drew nearer and Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush signaled his determination to oust
Saddam Hussein.

The blueprint Rumsfeld wound up with is a blend of his ideas for War Lite and the more traditional desires of Tommy Franks, the tough-talking general who heads the
U.S. Central Command. Franks argued successfully for a large conventional force of up to 250,000 combat and support troops. In return, Rumsfeld got Franks to agree
to deploying the troops in phases, rather than all at once. And Rumsfeld also prevailed on a strategy built around simultaneous air and land strikes, a rapid advance to
Baghdad, and extensive use of special-operations units. Their assignment: to go behind enemy lines to knock out targets, thus lessening the need, Rumsfeld argued, for
more frontal assault troops.

Whatever the compromises, there is little doubt the plans Rumsfeld finally signed off on were designed to showcase many of the reformers' theories. Some nine days
into the assault, this new-wave warfare is being put to the test in the harsh sands of Iraq, and not everything is going with clockwork precision. True, it is early in the
fight, and what looks like a series of initial glitches could be overcome by future breakthroughs. For instance, if the coalition secures its southern flank, it would fare
better in the assault on Baghdad.

Still, it's undeniable that the first week of "shock and awe" did not go as the Pentagon had hoped. As U.S. forces gather for a climactic battle for Baghdad, they have
been hobbled by sandstorms, guerrilla strikes by fedayeen irregulars, stretched supply lines, friendly fire incidents, and signs that the Iraqis may use chemical and nerve
agents. As a result, Rumsfeld and Franks face increasing flak. The most frequently heard charge: that the U.S. lacks the ground troops for what may turn into a tough,
protracted fight in Iraq.

That wasn't how things were supposed to play out. Pentagon planners had hoped that a blitz of precision bombing and cruise-missile strikes would sever Saddam
Hussein's ability to communicate with his commanders. A simultaneous land assault would arrive on Saddam's doorstep with unnerving speed. Isolated and surrounded,
Iraqi soldiers were expected to surrender en masse.

There was one more thing: Strict targeting restrictions would minimize civilian casualties to help the Americans and British be perceived as liberators by a skeptical Arab
world.

Rumsfeld's strategy lends itself to caricature by critics, in part because of the Pentagon chief's unwavering confidence in all things Rumsfeldian. But in fact, it represents
the culmination of years of thinking by hawkish policy advisers who advocate a preemptive tack toward America's enemies in an era of proliferating weapons of mass
destruction. In these encounters, the U.S. would bring to the battle advantages drawn from the nation's edge in high technology. Advances in communications, stealth
technology, robotics, and precision targeting would act as "force multipliers" that lessen the need for lumbering land armies and big cannons.

But with military analysts questioning whether the U.S. has sent enough troops for the task, some wonder if, just like some '90s dot-com visionary, Rumsfeld oversold
techno-war. One example: Despite disruption to Saddam's communications, Iraqi soldiers and irregulars have still found ways to harass the coalition advance. "We're
bogged down in a low-intensity conflict like we would find in any Third World country," Major William Gillespie of the 3rd Infantry told BusinessWeek. "Guys in civilian
clothes in pickup trucks are taking shots at us."

And, as widely predicted, even vaunted three-dimensional views of the battlefield cannot prevent friendly fire accidents or mistaken attacks on civilian cars, buses, and
houses. With the Republican Guards preparing for a fight to the finish in Baghdad, some analysts suggest that without the missing 4th Infantry Division -- a unit that was
supposed to move into Northern Iraq from Turkey but now faces a lengthy detour to Kuwait -- U.S. armor may be too thin for the coming showdown.

Amid the haze of war, it's still unclear whether the skeptics will be proved right. But one thing is certain: What's being tested in Iraq is not just the mettle of the U.S.
military but an entire philosophy of warfare. The Rumsfeld approach is in sharp contrast with the "overwhelming force" doctrine outlined by then-Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Colin L. Powell prior to the 1991 Gulf War. A former artillery officer whose views were shaped by Vietnam, Powell stated that barring a mandate from
the American people, a clear objective, and a force advantage of at least three times the enemy's troop strength, America should steer clear of wars. That's why Powell
insisted on a U.S.-led invasion force of 550,000 during Operation Desert Storm.

Rumsfeld's new-wavers think massing huge numbers of land troops isn't always needed in an era when powerful networked-computing systems and unerringly accurate
munitions can do much of the dirty work. "There's a substitution of information for mass," says retired Vice-Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, a key Rumsfeld adviser on
transformation.

The outcome of the Iraq war could determine the fate of Rumsfeld's vision, which has run into spirited resistance from entrenched military chiefs. If the U.S. wins a
quick victory, it will accelerate moves to modernize U.S. forces and make them more reliant on high-tech wizardry. And it would be a boon to the still reeling high-tech
industry. But if the Iraq intervention bogs down amid costly street fighting, the Pentagon chief would face a major setback.

Rumsfeld seems stung by the potshots, but he's determined to prove that technology and speed will prevail over crude mass in Iraq. "It is a good plan," he insisted on
Mar. 25. "Wars are unpredictable, and there's lots of difficulties." In the end, says Rumsfeld, the coalition will roll up Baghdad sooner rather than later, and with far
fewer casualties than pessimists envision.

Still, Rumsfeld has been sketchy on the details of his promised tech and strategic revolution. With the exception of axing the 70-ton Crusader howitzer, he hasn't killed
any major weapons programs that were envisioned for Cold War conflicts. The current Pentagon arsenal is in reality just a better-funded version of what the Clinton
Administration crafted.

What's more, top military officials are still scrambling to figure out ways to tackle the 21st Century challenges the Pentagon foresees. Some of those threats are hardly
distant, from the risks of urban warfare -- which U.S. troops face in Baghdad -- to the lack of access to bases near a newly menacing North Korea.

Indeed, to some analysts, Rumsfeld's Pentagon is acting much as Sears, Roebuck (S ) did when it saw Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ) making inroads in rural retail markets.
Sears responded by making its catalog business more efficient. In the same way, instead of changing, the U.S. military is more efficient at doing what it always did. It's
"much better at waging the kind of war we did in 1991 in the Persian Gulf," says Andrew F. Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic & Budgetary
Assessments, a Washington think tank.

If the U.S. manages to extricate itself more or less intact from Iraq, that may be all that's needed this time around. And in the end, the vaunted Rumsfeld Doctrine may
be perceived as little more than a flexible road map for doing whatever is needed to win wars in the future. But to Rumsfeld, it's much more than that. The nation's chief
war planner wants nothing less than to create a new military strategy that makes America's technological might the ultimate weapon. And now, as high-tech dreams
meet low-tech tactics in the barren landscape of Iraq, it is facing its first big test.

By Stan Crock, Paul Magnusson, and Lee Walczak in Washington, with Frederik Balfour with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq

[Tamara]

Jeezo pete! More Washington Post!

Look, McCaffrey has a pretty serious burr under his saddle, and he's Loeb's main cite. Does this not suggest anything to you?

[Jeff White]

Miami Herald
March 30, 2003

Military Worry: Are We Spread Too Thin?

By Tom Infield, Knight Ridder News Service

WASHINGTON - With another 120,000 troops being ordered to the Persian Gulf, the U.S. military may not have enough soldiers, tanks, warplanes and ships left to deal
with a major emergency elsewhere, military leaders say.

Sixty percent of the Marine Corps' power is already deployed overseas, mostly in Iraq. Half of the Navy's aircraft carrier battle groups and the bulk of the Air Force's
B-1 and B-2 heavy bombers are engaged in the war. Four of 10 15,000-person Army divisions are in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and elements of three other
divisions are en route to the Persian Gulf.

One Army division is permanently stationed in Korea, but it's not enough to hold off North Korea's million-man army, backed by thousands of artillery pieces that can
fire chemical weapons. That leaves just two divisions in reserve, one in Hawaii and the other, still refitting after duty in Afghanistan, in upstate New York.

Leaders Confident

Leaders of the armed services say they have no doubt that the United States could meet another threat, or even several threats, in other parts of the world, including the
Korean peninsula.

But with commitments in Colombia, a global war on terrorism and peacekeeping duties in Bosnia and Kosovo, some military leaders have begun to worry how far -- and
for how long -- their resources can be stretched.

The 240,000 American military personnel in the gulf region could be joined by tens of thousands of others over weeks or months. The eventual total is unknown outside
of the war planners' offices, but some of the new arrivals will relieve those who have been on the front lines.

The total will certainly be fewer than the 500,000 troops that served in the first Gulf War in 1991. But the Iraq war's impact could be much greater. America's armed
forces are much smaller than they were a dozen years ago, but military commitments are greater.

The Army had 18 divisions and 706,000 men and women at the time of the first Gulf War. Now it has 10 divisions and 476,000 people. The Navy had 580 ships then;
now it has 306. The Air Force, which had 165 air wings in 1991, now has 91.

Former President Bill Clinton, along with Congress, cut forces in anticipation of a ''peace dividend'' that would come with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War.

Sept. 11 Change

Until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration favored continued downsizing of the Army, and especially of its heavy armored and mechanized divisions,
while wanting to rely more on Special Forces, high-tech weaponry and air power.

The administration still favors what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has called ''lighter, faster, more agile forces,'' not more troops. Rumsfeld, in fact, has been
openly criticized by some active duty and retired military commanders in recent days for underestimating Iraqi opposition, betting too heavily on precision-guided bombs
and not sending enough ground troops, armor and artillery to the region.

Even before the start of the war in Iraq, some top military leaders were warning that the downsized force was becoming overextended.

Testifying before a House of Representatives subcommittee, Adm. William J. Fallon, the vice chief of naval operations, said ``today's surge [in deployments] has put a
significant strain on every Navy resource.''

Days before Fallon's testimony, Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard Brown, the service's personnel chief, went before the Senate Armed Services Committee to address what
he called a ''crisis'' in manpower, including the frequent and prolonged mobilizations of Air Force reservists and Air National Guard members.

He said that with the stepped up air patrols over the United States and the war on terrorists abroad, ``we are stressed by the challenges.''

Although it has lobbied for a bigger role in U.S. war plans -- and gotten one in Iraq -- the Marine Corps is stretched thin, too.

99,000 Outside U.S.

Of 175,000 active-duty Marines and 19,000 reservists, 99,000 are deployed outside the United States, from the Middle East to Afghanistan to Okinawa to the former
Soviet republic of Georgia. This includes 64,000 in Iraq and Kuwait.

If a new war began somewhere else, American ground forces would have to come overwhelmingly from the Army.

''We conceivably could help out in another theater,'' a Marine official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``But the Marine Corps, primarily, is a one-theater force.''

Most of the Army is tied down, too, however. Units from seven of the 10 regular Army divisions already are in the gulf region or have orders to head there.

Only the 25th Infantry Division, in Hawaii, and the 10th Mountain Division, which has returned to upstate New York from Afghanistan, are entirely on U.S. soil. The 2nd
Division is permanently assigned to South Korea.

The 3rd Infantry Division, from Fort Stewart, Ga., is leading the battle in Iraq, along with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the 101st Airborne Division from Fort
Campbell, Ky. And the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy, has opened a second front in northern Iraq.

The 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., has joined the battle against Iraqi guerrillas near Nassiriyah, and other elements of the division are trying to root out
terrorists in Afghanistan.

Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, are on airplanes to the gulf.

[jmbg29]

This is absurd.

[Jeff White]

The debate here is not if we should be in Iraq, but it's over our defense policy and if it's right for the needs of our nation.

After WWII we built the arsenal of democracy to keep the Soviet bear away from the door. Things got out of hand and as early as 1956, none other then President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex and how much of our treasure it would consume. Outside of some lean years during the Carter administration, DOD rolled merrily along consuming a great part of our GNP. At then end of the Cold War we began dismantling our military machine. Too big, too expensive, who are we going to fight? were all things that were said. Politicians spoke of a peace dividend. No one seemed to think that without the world formed into two camps, it might actually become more dangerous. Some pundits expressed this, but they were ignored at best and ridiculed at worst as everyone lined up for their slice of what was defense's pie.

World events proved those pundits right and we were left with a smaller force engaged in more and more OOTW and small regional wars. We were once again faced with the need to have a credible defense. Only this time against a threat like we'd never faced.

The current Secretary of Defense has a pet theory that we can use our ability to precisely deliver munitions and our advantages in digital communications to allow us to fight and win with significantly smaller ground forces. When the decision to deploy troops to Afghainstan, Army forces had their artillery cut from the deployments. This left commanders with no way to provide immediate fires in all weather, especially at fleeting targets. While we won operation Anaconda, we will always wonder if we could have suffered fewer casualties and lost fewer aircraft if we had taken the artillery. When the 82d Airborne deployed, they took their artillery.

Now we are engaged in Iraq, with a much smaller force then we had the first time. Again we've left the artillery at home. The artillery you see on cable news is artillery that is organic to the divisions and MEUs that have deployed. There is no Corps level artillery in country. Once again, when a commander needs more firepower then he has in his hip pocket, he has to depend on air. Air is great, so are preecision munitions, but when you are pinned down and calling for fire, you need it then...

We have a saying; No plan survives contact. The administration fully expected the Iraqis to fold in a couple of days. And they aren't playing fair..they won't come out and fight set piece battles where our superior capabilities can decimate them in a couple days of intense fighting. Now we are going to have to dig them out. It's ok, we can do it. It will be more costly in blood and treasure then it would have been had they folded in a day like so many expected. Perhaps they would have if we had hit them with overwhelming force right from the start. We won't know, because we never had the forces in theater to do that with.

The nation has to decide if they want a force that can win quickly and with fewer losses or if they want a smaller, less lethal force that can win but at higher cost in blood. It's plain what kind of force the Secretary of Defense wants...

Jeff

[El Tejon]

Jeff, who in the administration expected a couple of days fighting? When and where did they say this?

[Al Thompson]

Intersting read Jeff, thanks for the effort. In GWI, I was a command briefer at Ft. Mac. I had a prettty clear picture of what was going on.

Of the Army divisions involved, only the 1st AD, 24th ID and 1st Cav had any serious fighting. The 2nd ACR had a couple of hard fights, but the 101st did not and the 82nd was trucked into battle.

Seems to me that an extrapolation from that conflict would actually support the "plan" - if we actually know what it is (was). IMHO, 2 divisions in a hard pincer movement would have cracked that nut pretty quickly.

Frankly, my take is that the Turks threw a pretty big monkey wrench into the works. Not sure what plan B is, but should be interesting.

BTW, Powell was an infantry officer, not arty as Business Week reported.

[rennaissancemann]

There are some assumptions that just won't die a natural death...

For instance, I've lost track of the number of times that, after finding out that I'm in the Air National Guard, I've been asked if I know SSgt xxxxxx, he's in the Air Force. Sigh.

Then there's the folks that, knowing that I'm in the military, ask me detailed questions about a weapon system, my AFSC isn't munitions, in use by another service, etc.

The same thing is true about military strategy. I'm a pretty intelligent and well read kind of guy, and I've spent 18 years in the Air Force, 4 of which have been in a joint environment. The military is my career and the art and science of the military is my hobby. I've gotta tell ya, I could no more plan a military campaign than I can perform brain surgery... well the kind where the patient survives that is. It's not that I'm stupid, I simply lack the training. Officers that achieve flag rank have that kind of training. That's what officers do, they plan and they lead.

Articles in the press that quote an unnamed source in the military? They're not quoting some whistle blowing underdog out to expose some great wrong, they're quoting the poison pen sour grapes of a military member who's using the press to advance their personal political agenda.

One of the reasons that Rumsfeld is hated by some of the senior folks at the pentagon is that he is an empire killer who cancels programs that don't, or won't work. A Defense Secretary that challenges his subordinates in the DoD to think outside the box. Change is difficult, unpopular, sometimes painful, and only history can judge whether the final results are good or bad.

Respectfully

[Blackhawk]

Well said, rennaissancemann! :D

Hopefully, your post will be read often enough to be understood by those who "know-it-all" before they post yet another diatribe about the SoD.

[Lennyjoe]

Hopefully, your post will be read often enough to be understood by those who "know-it-all" before they post yet another diatribe about the SoD.

Never said I was.... If its me your talking about

So, let me say it again. The whole point of posting this article is that I hope the Gov allows the true professionals to use every means at their disposal to achieve victory.

I dont want to see the military's hands tied like it was in Nam. Thats all.

[Jeff White]

El Tejon,
As late as 16 March, Vice President Cheney publically said the troops would be greeted as liberators. As I find the time, I'll dig out some more examples.

Blackhawk,
I find it sad that some conservatives can be so close minded that they refuse to accept any debate about the policies of their own party. I'm sure you were in awe of how the Democrats could blindly support Clinton.


Tamara,
I served under General McAffrey when he was deputy commandant of the Infantry school. I trust his judgement.

Lennyjoe,
It does appear that the gloves haven't come off yet. Given the press' preoccupation with civilian casualties, I imagine they won't come off, even if it costs lives.

All: When the history of this war is written, I am conviced that it will come out that we are attempting to prove that the new way of war works. GEN. Shinseki (Army Chief of Staff) publically stated that it would take more troops then were in the region to win a few weeks back and received a sharp rebuke for this. There is no love lost between Shinseki and Rumsfeld as Rumsfeld went as far as announcing the appointment of his successor a couple years before his term of chief of staff is due to run out. But there are more then unidentified sources speaking out. LT GEN William C. Wallace (ground forces commander) stated the other day that the level of Iraqi resistance surprised everyone.

My point and I think Lennyjoe's point is that we have a lot of capability that we aren't using. Why? I think it's so that the voices for transformation in the Pentagon can test some of their pet theorys. I don't think a shooting war is the time to test this. I think that when we commit soldiers to battle that we owe it to them to provide them everything they need to accomplixh the mission in the most expediant manner. I don't think that we have. I will be retired in a little more then a year, when I reach 30 years service, but I have a son in B-2-29th Infantry at Ft Benning who is just beginning his career. This is an important issue for me, one that goes beyond party politics.

Jeff

[jmbg29]

Looks like you aren't alone in your assessment Jeff.

NBC Severs Ties With Journalist Peter Arnett

Monday, March 31, 2003



NEW YORK — NBC fired journalist Peter Arnett on Monday, saying it was wrong for him to give an interview with state-run Iraqi TV in which he said the American-led coalition's initial plan for the war had failed because of Iraq's resistance. Arnett called the interview a "misjudgment" and apologized.

Arnett, on NBC's Today show on Monday, said he was sorry for his statement but added "I said over the weekend what we all know about the war."

"I want to apologize to the American people for clearly making a misjudgment," the New Zealand-born Arnett said. He said he would try to leave Baghdad now, joking "there's a small island in the South Pacific that I've inhabited that I'll try to swim to."

NBC defended him Sunday, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were analytical in nature. But by Monday morning the network switched course and, after Arnett spoke with NBC News President Neal Shapiro, said it would no longer work with Arnett.

"It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi TV, especially at a time of war," NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. "And it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions in that interview."

Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press, gained much of his prominence from covering the 1991 Gulf War for CNN. One of the few American television reporters left in Baghdad, his reports were frequently aired on NBC and its cable sisters, MSNBC and CNBC.

Leaving a second network under a cloud may mark the end of his TV career. Arnett was the on-air reporter of the 1998 CNN report that accused American forces of using sarin nerve gas on a Laotian village in 1970 to kill U.S. defectors. Two CNN employees were sacked and Arnett was reprimanded over the report, which the station later retracted. Arnett left the network when his contract was not renewed.

In the Iraqi TV interview, broadcast Sunday by Iraq's satellite television station and monitored by The Associated Press in Egypt, Arnett said his Iraqi friends tell him there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain are doing.

He said the United States is reappraising the battlefield and delaying the war, maybe for a week, "and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan."

"Clearly, the American war plans misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces," Arnett said.

Arnett said it is clear that within the United States there is growing opposition to the war and a growing challenge to President Bush about the war's conduct.

"Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States," he said. "It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments."

At a briefing Sunday in Qatar, Gen. Tommy Franks ticked off major achievements of the war campaign, including the advance of troops to within 60 miles of Baghdad. But he found himself answering questions about whether he had enough troops to do the job and denying that coalition forces were stalled.

A Republican congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, told Fox News Channel on Sunday that Arnett's remarks were "Kafkaesque" and "just crazy."

"Let's hope that he's being coerced," Ros-Lehtinen said.

The first Bush administration was unhappy with Arnett's reporting on the Gulf War in 1991 for CNN, suggesting he had become a conveyor of propaganda. ARnett was denounced for reporting that the allies had bombed a baby milk factory in Baghdad when the military said it was a biological weapons plant.

Arnett went to Iraq this year not as an NBC News reporter but as an employee of the MSNBC show National Geographic Explorer. When other NBC reporters left Baghdad for safety reasons, the network began airing his reports. NBC said Monday he wouldn't be reporting for National Geographic Explorer either.

The Iraqi TV interview was broadcast in English and translated by a uniformed Iraqi anchor. NBC said Arnett gave the interview when asked shortly after he attended an Iraqi government briefing.

In the April 5 issue of TV Guide, Arnett said he felt he had found redemption reporting on the current war.

"I was furious with (CNN founder) Ted Turner and (then-CNN chairman) Tom Johnson when they threw me to the wolves after I made them billions risking my life to cover the first Gulf War," Arnett told TV Guide.

"Now (Turner and Johnson) are gone, the Iraqis have thrown the CNN crew out of Baghdad, and I'm still here," he said. "Any satisfaction in that? Ha, ha, ha, ha."

He said the Iraqis allowed him to stay in Baghdad because they respect him and "see me as a fellow warrior."

[gburner]

Guess what folks?????

None of us really know Dick about the planning or implementation of our war effort in Iraq. We can hypothesize, speculate, opine, debate, even muster 'facts' and 'statistics' that lend substance to our hot air.

In the final analysis, though, we are like the seven blind men attempting to describe an elephant by each touching a certain, separate part. This is just more confusion generated by the need for immediate gratification. Slow down, wait and learn. All will be revealed in time.:cool:

[Jeff White]

jmbg29,

I fail to see the connection between Peter Arnett's firing from MSNBC and the debate here. Unless you are suggesting that anyone who doesn't toe the current party line is traitorous. In which case perhaps you aren't understanding the issue. I am not against the war. It needs to be done. It needed to be done a year ago.

I am not happy with the way the Secretary of Defense has chosen to prosecute the war. If you don't believe me when I say we are testing Transformation perhaps you'd believe Phil Odeen former Vice Chairman of the Defense Science Board who is quoted in this weeks Army Times in an article entitled; War: A Deadly Test for Transformation In which he says; "It's a rare opportunity to assess what works and what doesn't and what we have to do differently. No country can afford to ignore the lessons."

Transformation has been a controversial program in DOD because it's changing the way business is done and cancelling pet programs. The tests have also been controversial, with OPFOR commanders resigning because the rules were rigged or the wargame was stopped and restarted with different rules after the pet theories didn't work out as planned etc.

gburner,
You're right in that no one here really knows what the plans are. However if you have a lot of experience in the military and understand how things are done, and have kept up on all the proposed changes to doctrine, you don't have to be von Clauswitz to see that we are doing things differently then out published doctrine says we will and that the way we're different looks a lot like the new proposed way of doing things.

Jeff

[jmbg29]

I fail to see the connection between Peter Arnett's firing from MSNBC and the debate here.That doesn't surprise me. BTW, it's not about his being fired, rather, it is about him proclaiming that we have failed.Unless you are suggesting that anyone who doesn't toe the current party line is traitorous.Not at all. I'm merely pointing out that you are not alone in being able to second guess those responsible for actually having to prosecute this war.

You can spam this board all day with articles that feature Generals reminiscing about what they couldawouldashoulda done. You can assert that if only we had done such and such, things would have been better.

Could they have used arty in "Operation Anaconda"? Sure they could have. They also may have zapped a whole bunch of our guys with friendly fire from it. Or, they may have had one or a dozen of our heavy lift helicopters crash in the thin air of high altitude in the attempt to move it from one goat meadow in Trashcanistan to the next.

And as sure as the Sun will rise tomorrow, somebody would piss and whine about it, and declare it a devastating, insufferable, and unforgiveable defeat. That's all.

[Jeff White]

jmbg29,

You obviously have never humped a ruck or had to depend on fire support. This is an important debate and you can cheerlead for your side all you want, but I don't think that you have a horse in this race. I do, my life, my son's life and many friends and comrades already in country, one who was wounded a week ago Sunday.

I don't recall ever saying that we've failed or that we are losing. The time to test pet theories about how to fight a war is before the the bullets fly.

I guarantee you that if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in combat and pinned down, you'll want everything from tac air to bringing a battleship out of mothballs to fire in your support.

Obviously I feel that when we send troops into battle we have a moral obligation to support them with the entire resources of the nation and you don't. War isn't a video game and it's not the place to prove pet theories when you have the capability to do better. It costs lives...

Jeff

[Blackhawk]

Never said I was.... If its me your talking about

So, let me say it again. The whole point of posting this article is that I hope the Gov allows the true professionals to use every means at their disposal to achieve victory.

I dont want to see the military's hands tied like it was in Nam. Thats all.It was not directed at you LennyJoe.

[Blackhawk]

Jeff White, I find it sad that some conservatives can be so close minded that they refuse to accept any debate about the policies of their own party. I'm sure you were in awe of how the Democrats could blindly support Clinton.
Not nearly as sad as I find it when posters respond to things they only THINK somebody else said.

I said I hoped posters would think twice before they posted diatribes about the SoD in the sense that a diatribe is "a bitter and abusive speech or writing." I hate to see invective and mindless criticism fomented from mere dislike of somebody. If a post is fairly grounded, it's most welcome.

I wouldn't call my reaction to how the Democrats could blindly support Clinton as awe, but I get your point. :D

[gburner]

Jeff White,

With all of the experience that your post(s) seem to indicate that you possess, it seems a trifle naieve of you to think that this war or ANY in history has not been the testbed for trying something new, whether weapons systems,
integration of arms, vertical invelopment or whatever. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The grunts always pay the freight. You seem tweaked that the war is not being prosecuted per our advertised 'dotrine'. I for one am glad that our military is flexible enough to change strategy and tactics in relation to the realities of the battlefield. Otherwise....well, Burnside at Fredericksburg comes to mind

[jmbg29]

You obviously have never humped a ruck or had to depend on fire support.Quite correct. That would be because of my not inconsiderable talent in producing battle ready underwater (and some forms of land) mines that are capable of detering/delaying/stopping our enemies use of sea/land power. Not to mention the ancillary benefit of being able to kill/maim hundreds of our enemies at a shot, should they be so stupid as to dare tread where we - the U.S. Navy Minemen - have gone before. Or to paraphrase Zero Wing, "All Your Planet Are Belong To US!"This is an important debate and you can cheerlead for your side all you want, but I don't think that you have a horse in this race.I'm not cheerleading. I'm just pointing out that whiners are not unique to this time and place in history.

There is no end to the old litany of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and dare I say Marines, that wouldacouldashoulda had an '03 vs. an M1 vs. an M14 vs. an M16 vs. an M4....... :barf: Or if you like, fill in the gear of your choice.I guarantee you that if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in combat and pinned down, you'll want everything from tac air to bringing a battleship out of mothballs to fire in your support.I sure would want all that, and a "Phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range."

And I can guarantee you that somebody will bitch if our power-pack craps out on the rifle, or we eat a 16 inch shell for lunch.:scrutiny: :uhoh: :barf:

[Sean Smith]

Dood... give it a rest with the cut and paste! :rolleyes:

My take on the war so far (for what it's worth... and guess how much you paid for it! :neener: ) is that at least one of the planners actually read a copy of Achtung - Panzer!. Lord knows the whining about (truly piddling, ineffective) "rear area security" threats sounds suspiciously like the whining that Guderian had to put up with in 1940...

"Heinz! Quit defeating the French so fast! Your supply lines are in danger!"

Gott in Himmel! :rolleyes:

[Justin Moore]

Looks like you aren't alone in your assessment Jeff.
NBC Severs Ties With Journalist Peter Arnett

That was kind of low don't you think?

I heard on C-SPAN this morning that several of the IN THEATRE commanders are expressing the same sentiments that Jeff has expressed. Sentiments that McCaffery and others have expressed. The IN THEATRE commanders, not armchairs QB's surfing the Internet. What is one to make of that? There are the ones that are there, know THE plan, and are doing the fighting.

t does appear that the gloves haven't come off yet. Given the press' preoccupation with civilian casualties, I imagine they won't come off, even if it costs lives.

I worry that that may be the case as well. Let's just hit them HARD and get it over with for god's sake.

[Tamara]

I served under General McAffrey when he was deputy commandant of the Infantry school. I trust his judgement.

I can respect that.

I am not happy with the way the Secretary of Defense has chosen to prosecute the war. If you don't believe me when I say we are testing Transformation perhaps you'd believe Phil Odeen former Vice Chairman of the Defense Science Board who is quoted in this weeks Army Times in an article entitled; War: A Deadly Test for Transformation In which he says; "It's a rare opportunity to assess what works and what doesn't and what we have to do differently. No country can afford to ignore the lessons."

Just as a point to ponder:

In a 20th century example, a massively modern industrialized nation attacked a weaker "third world" state.

"Proven doctrine" was ignored in favor of new "pet theories". Resistance was "stiffer than expected". Units that were "deemed vital" were left guarding another front. Casualties were "heavier than anticipated". The successful prosecution of the war effort was greatly aided by the opening of a "second ground front". "Too great a reliance" was placed on tacair strikes to replace tried-and-true corps-level arty.

...and yet the German invasion of Poland has hardly gone down in history as one of the great stalemates of all time.

While I have my questions about this whole Iraq op, thus far it makes Case White look like Verdun. I'm willing to wait for the conclusion before I offer confident pronuncements. ;)

[Jeff White]

El Tejon,

Just a couple more examples of the overconfidence the administration expressed before the steel started flying. As I said in an earlier thread before the war started, this attitude was not the right one to put out before the American people.

Feb. 7, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

March 4, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a breakfast with reporters: "What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. &ellipsis; Iraq is much weaker than they were back in the '90s," when its forces were routed from Kuwait.

March 11, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars: "The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator."

March 16, Vice President Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press: "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. &ellipsis; I think it will go relatively quickly, ... (in) weeks rather than months." He predicted that regular Iraqi soldiers would not "put up such a struggle" and that even "significant elements of the Republican Guard ... are likely to step aside."

Given statements like these coming from the administration is it any wonder that it's enemies in the fourth estate are holding their feet to the fire?

Tamara,

I have never expressed that we are losing the war or that there is a remote chance we will lose. I am suggesting that the plan to use less then overwhelming force may not have been the most efficient way to do things. I think that as a nation we owe it to the men and women we put into harms way to provide them with enough forces and firepower to win in the most expediant manner with the least amount of friendly casualties.

Sean Smith,

I don't think that the Iraqis planned to defend their country in the open desert. This truly would have been over with in a couple days if they had. Rather then try to meet our forces in the set piece battle we'd all like to see, I think that they planned all along to withdraw into the cities and try to achieve through political means (significant coalition casualties, large numbers of civilian casualties, outcries by opposition politicians in the coalition nations and recriminations in the UN etc.). The Iraqis have made a gross misjudgement if they think that strategy will work. The American people were attacked on American soil on 11 September 2001. They have a personal involvment in this conflict, one strong enough that they will be willing to pay the necessary price to win. The only bigger mistake they could make would be to try another terrorist attack on American soil. Rather then thinking it's not worth it any longer, the American people would most likely decide that there weren't enough buildings in the entire country to level to even the score.

I guess we can all wait a few years when all involved write their show and tell books to find out.

Jeff

[Blackhawk]

Think maybe we should wait until "weeks" have passed after 3/19 before we get our panties all wadded up about how long the war is taking based on the guesses of the pooh-bahs...? :rolleyes:

[jmbg29]

That was kind of low don't you think?Not at all.

Second guessers are a nickle a dozen; no matter what flavor they come in.

[hops]

Well, I like the following commentary from the WSJ.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK
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Rumsfeld's Second Front

An unbending rule of Washington life is that the one thing critics can never forgive you for is being right. This is worth keeping in mind amid the obloquy now being heaped on Donald Rumsfeld.

Judging by all of the blind-quote vituperation the Secretary of Defense is receiving, a casual reader might be surprised to learn that we haven't yet lost the Iraq war. U.S. troops are within 50 miles of Baghdad, probing Republican Guard lines that are being shredded from the air. The surrounded enemy has suicide bombers, guerrilla harassment and Peter Arnett left as an offensive strategy. We can hit the enemy, he can't much hit us.

Yet Mr. Rumsfeld is being assailed for having given the "bum advice" to President Bush that has brought our troops this far this fast. The main substantive accusation seems to be that Mr. Rumsfeld forced the military chiefs to come up with a war plan that did more than repeat the 500,000-man deployment and strategy of the Gulf War. This has offended some of the armchair generals who are claiming through the fog of television that we should have had more troops on the ground.

These are of course the same generals fond of saying that no battle plan ever survives its first meeting with the enemy. Perhaps they've forgotten how complicated it is to move an artillery battery in battle or to fly an Apache helicopter at night, let alone move a division 300 miles in four days. Confusion and mistakes are the norm in war, the issue is how well they are handled. For example, there now seem to be fewer Fedayeen harassing U.S. supply lines than there were last week. Why? We've killed many of them.

Yes, it would have been better had the Turks agreed to allow the armored 4th Infantry to march from the north, as the original war plan envisioned. But the Turkey failure was diplomatic, not military. Last time we looked, the State Department was in charge of diplomacy.

The Rumsfeld war plan also had to be designed with a far smaller military than we had in 1991. To refresh some memories, defense spending fell in absolute terms in seven of eight years of the Clinton Presidency. At the time this was called the "peace dividend," believe it or not. Colin Powell was able to deploy the Ronald Reagan war machine in 1991; Mr. Rumsfeld inherited the rump Clinton model, about 40% smaller in troops, older planes and ships.

Mr. Rumsfeld is a payback target now precisely because he bucked the military status quo. He has fought for more (and smarter) defense spending against a Congress that would rather build more highways and subsidize more corn fields. He has challenged the Army brass to do as well as the Marines in introducing technology and mobility into their strategic doctrine. Note that most of the critical TV generals are retired Army, not Air Force.

As for the war on terror, the Defense Secretary is among those who believe the best homeland security is to pursue terrorists in their havens. This is what the Iraq expedition is all about. The opponents of the Rumsfeld strategy have been horrified to discover that Mr. Bush agrees with this; or even worse, that Mr. Bush is driving the strategy that Mr. Rumsfeld is implementing. Thus the piling on Mr. Rumsfeld now in the hope of dividing the President from his Defense chief. Yesterday's Washington Post article quoting highly critical "former senior Republican government officials and party leaders," though none by name, was especially cowardly.

With American troops poised near Baghdad, there are difficult war calls to come. One is how long to soften up the Republican Guard from the air before going for the kill on the ground. That is a decision best made by military commanders in theater, in consultation with the Pentagon, not by the White House and certainly not by TV commentators.

It might be possible to repeat the Gulf War luxury of weeks of preparatory bombing. But this war is not taking place in a vacuum, and there is a problem with the stability of our Arab allies. The faster the war is over the better for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Iraqi people. Defense secretaries are paid to consider those political factors when they work with commanders on such military decisions as when to take Baghdad.

All in all the Rumsfeld war plan seems to be succeeding very well. Angered by Saddam's criminal tactics, and determined now that American lives are at stake, public support is firming behind it. The one fatal attraction would be to fall now for a "diplomatic pause" or cease fire. As we heard Mr. Rumsfeld say on Sunday, that isn't part of his plan.

[Al Thompson]

Had the rare opertunity to watch TV today. What a :barf: - One of the cartoons in todays Augusta Chronicle had Rumsfeld in the driver's seat of a car with a bunch of screaming kids in the back saying "Is it vietnam yet?".......

Noticed the news folks are down to retired Lt. Cols for "experts". Wonder where that will end?

Looks like we're doing pretty well - the next couple of weeks will be interesting. 4th ID's unloading now.

[jmbg29]

I guess it's a good thing that Rummy held us back. Otherwise our guys would have overshot Baghdad, and ended up in Turkey. :rolleyes:

[Thumper]

jmbg29,

There sure are a lot of threads around here begging to be resurrected, aren't there? :D

[Zander]

There sure are a lot of threads around here begging to be resurrected, aren't there? Guess that depends on how honest the earlier posters are on this particular thread.

There seems to be a pronounced paucity of articles from the NYT, Washington Post, et alia and the conclusions drawn from same now that the "suspect" strategy of Rummy&Co has been battle-tested.

Quelle surprise, eh?...

[Jeff White]

It still remains to be seen if transformation (small agile forces and precision air) will work against an army that wants to fight.

It's never worked against an army that would fight in any fair test in computer modelling or at NTC.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that things worked out the way they did, and if we never intend on getting into a fight with anyone better then the Iraqis, I guess transformation makes sense. I wonder if the PLA or NKPA will go down as easily.

I stand by my assertion that certain civilan Hawks in the administration were surprised at the initial resistance we met.

We need to be careful what lessons we learn from this victory, because once we reach the objective force we'll be unable to rebuild our forces in time to win a major conflict.

Once before there was a nation who built wonder weapons the likes of which the world had never seen. For three years they ran over anyone that got in their way. But at the end, their superior technology was unable to beat the shear weight of the slightly inferior weapons a bigger industrial power could produce.

Jeff

[jmbg29]

I stand by my assertion that certain civilan Hawks in the administration were surprised at the initial resistance we met.That would explain why Rumsfeld came to every news conference with a look of shock and awe on his face. :rolleyes:

[Lone_Gunman]

jeff white:

"Once before there was a nation who built wonder weapons the likes of which the world had never seen. For three years they ran over anyone that got in their way. But at the end, their superior technology was unable to beat the shear weight of the slightly inferior weapons a bigger industrial power could produce."


What are you talking about?

[jmbg29]

Nazi Germany.