The New York Times is going where several media outlets have already gone, starting a three-part series today on the series of tragic mistakes the Bush administration in Iraq, in pre-war planning and post-war reconstruction. It may not be a new story, but the first piece of the series, which ran today, had some excellent details and a few choice quotes that warrant attention.
For example, generals on the ground realized that the Bush/Rumsfeld plan of skimping on troops was a disaster.
“My position is that we lost momentum and that the insurgency was not inevitable,” said James A. (Spider) Marks, a retired Army major general, who served as the chief intelligence officer for the land war command. “We had momentum going in and had Saddam’s forces on the run.
“But we did not have enough troops,” he continued. “First, we did not have enough troops to conduct combat patrols in sufficient numbers to gain solid intelligence and paint a good picture of the enemy on the ground. Secondly, we needed more troops to act on the intelligence we generated. They took advantage of our limited numbers.”
Moreover, it was somewhat surprising to see Jay Garner, the first civilian administrator of Iraq and a retired Army lieutenant general, who also said we didn’t have enough troops, place blame at the feet of the Bush administration — and name names. In fact, Garner said it was the administration’s blunders that made the insurgency so dangerous.
“John Abizaid was the only one who really had his head in the postwar game,” General Garner said, referring to the general who served as General Franks’s deputy and eventually his successor. “The Bush administration did not. Condi Rice did not. Doug Feith didn’t. You could go brief them, but you never saw any initiative come of them. You just kind of got a north and south nod. And so it ends with so many tragic things.”
That’s a rather stunning assessment, considering the source. So Garner thinks the administration was wrong, Paul Bremer thinks the administration’s mistakes led U.S. forces to “pay a big price,” and generals on the ground never received the support they desperately needed to maintain security.
Anyone who supports Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq just isn’t paying attention.
Another stunning portion of the Times piece dealt with the White House’s almost criminally naïve approach to withdrawing troops after the end of “major combat operations.”
On April 15, 2003, Mr. Bush convened his National Security Council and discussed soliciting peacekeeping forces from other countries so the United States could begin to pull out troops. Even though there had been widespread opposition to the invasion, administration officials thought that some governments would put aside their objections once victory was at hand and the Iraqis began to form a new government.
Pentagon officials briefed the president on a plan to enlist four divisions: one made up of NATO troops; another from the Gulf Cooperative Council, an association of Persian Gulf states; one led by Poland; and another by Britain. The thinking was that the United States would leave no more than a division or two in Iraq.
The next day, General Franks flew to Baghdad and instructed his commanders to draw up plans to begin pulling out. At that palace meeting with his commanders, he noted that it was possible for the United States to wear out its welcome and keep too many troops in Iraq too long. A functioning interim Iraqi government was expected within 30 to 60 days, he said. He told his commanders to be prepared to take as much risk going out as they did coming in.
Bush’s post-war plan, if you can call it a “plan,” was to be greeted as liberators and watch the world send troops. The White House never saw an insurgency coming, because they were blinded, to borrow a phrase, by their irrational exuberance.
Truly insane. Completely unforgivable.