Regarding the criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld by a growing list of retired general officers, I want to know one thing. Will it mean a thing at the end of the day?
As a retired Soldier, I am at times amused and others, very concerned. I am amused in reading and listening to the commentary of people who know absolutely nothing about the Army make absurd claims, and concerned that the matter will be ignored until it is forgotten.
I am not among those who believe that Mr. Rumsfeld need resign. I am not among those who make the idiotic claim that the retired generals are trying to take control of the military from civilian command. Something is going on inside the Pentagon, and we need to learn what it is. I suggest that the President appoint a panel of subject matter experts to compile a report. Perhaps he might convene a group of retired general officers and former civilian leaders of the Pentagon to examine the facts, view evidence and conduct interviews. The fact that so many general officers have come forward to put their credibility and reputations on the line is a solid indication to me that something in the Pentagon is broken. What could it be that has compelled these generals to take such extraordinary measures? Certainly, squabbles between the Commander in Chief and a few generals have erupted in the past, but never, has this many generals come forward.
Those who claim that the generals would have the military removed from civilian oversight are missing the point. They practice selective recall when addressing the subject. Let us review the main complaint, which is; a failure to plan for a post war Iraq. When I reflect back to the liberation of Baghdad it seems to me that there was no plan for controlling the streets of Iraq after the combat phase was over. And why was that important? Recall if you will, watching the television news on the day that the mass looting began in Baghdad. I saw it right there on my television screen, thousands of giddy Iraqis flitting about Baghdad in chaos, carting off fire extinguishers, air conditioners, toilets, anything that was not bolted down; stacked precariously upon the wheel barrows or rickety one burrow carts and wheeled away right under the noses of overwhelmed, bewildered troops who appeared to realize something was very wrong with the picture but lacked any guidance as to what they should do about it. This was my epiphany. Important government records and other irreplaceable documents vital to the reconstruction effort and capture of former Hussein officials disappeared among the looters, lost to the four winds forever. That was the day we lost the initiative in Iraq. Since that day, we began to see the ravages of the IED, we heard the news reports of Soldiers going down to sniper fire, kidnappings, beheadings, assassinations. All indisputable signs of a failure to prepare for maintaining law and order upon the collapse of the Hussein regime, and the main reason that the mission has been as dangerous and as difficult as it has.
I hope that a search for answers will be initiated. We should take a look at the unvarnished truth, learn from any mistakes that were made and implement measures to ensure we don’t do it again. The world is an increasingly dangerous place; the stakes are growing ever more ominous. We are fortunate that the consequences of our missteps in Iraq have not been catastrophic, but with Iran looming on the horizon, our military needs to operate with the efficiency of a Swiss clock.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
The recent criticism of the Secretary of Defense by several retired General Officers compells me to write on the topic.
I have heard one crackpot politician after another attempt to put some kind of spin on the issue in order to position themselves in a favorable political position and from Rush Limbaugh complete with some moronic callers to his show, to John Stewart, I've heard radio and TV personalities characterize the dispute as an all or nothing affair yet they only succeed in demonstrating how precious little they know about the inner workings of the Army. I'm not a retired General Officer, I'm a retired Noncommissioned Officer, just a dumb crusty old grunt with an opinion. But I do know a little bit about leadership, gained through twenty years of continuous, honorable active duty service to this wonderful nation in the United States Army including combat in Iraq. I most certainly understand this issue better than 90% of our current elected members of the federal government, Rush Limbaugh or John Stewart.
I will begin by saying that there is blame enough to go all around regarding the disintegration of cohesion between the uniformed and civilian leaders at the Pentagon.
Some are asking the obvious question, where were these retired Generals with their critical statements before the war began? First of all, none of us are privy to any conversations that may have occurred in the planning phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, (OIF).
It is the opinion of The Rock that most of the General Officer Corps hesitated to voice disagreement with Mr. Rumsfeld prior to OIF because they feared that their career may have been in jeopardy, why? Let us go back in time shall we?
If you are familiar with the military you might know what the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is, if not, look it up. During the most recent QDR, there were some questions raised concerning a new artillery weapons system known as the Crusader. It had been pretty much common knowledge that the land forces of the USA had been at a disadvantage in the indirect fire weapons systems for some time in fact, the Iraqi Army during Desert Storm was in possession of more and better quality artillery systems that the Army so it’s a good thing they did not know how to employ them, but I digress. The Crusader had gone over budget as usual, and it became the issue of an internal Pentagon debate. Former Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) General Eric Shinsecki supported the Crusader platform as did the former Secretary of the Army (SA) Brigadier General (Retired) Thomas White. The Secretary of Defense (SecDef) Donald Rumsfeld as well as the Deputy Secretary of Defense (DSecDef) Paul Wolfowitz was not as inclined to support Crusader. To cut to the chase, the Crusader was cancelled. I think this apparently disappointed some Army brass. I think this is where the cohesion between the civilian and uniformed members of DoD suffered a parting of ways and the command climate began to degenerate with the civilian leadership of the opinion that Army brass was stuck in Cold War mode and the uniformed leadership of the opinion that they were being ignored.
During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the CSA was responding to general questions in reference to the QDR. General Shinsecki was asked what his thoughts on troop level deployments were. The CSA obviously did not want to answer that question but he eventually relented and gave an estimate; several hundred thousand troops. Not to win the battle, but to keep law and order in the streets of Iraq. The former SA, Thomas White echoed the sentiments of the CSA on the matter in his own testimony before the committee. So, we have two honorable men giving an honest answer to direct, specific questions asked by members of a committee assigned to provide a measure of oversight to military matters. What was the result of their testimony? Well, the liberal media had some fun with it, attempted to spin it in the usual manner. But shortly after both the CSA and the SA provided these estimates the DSecDef, Paul Wolfowitz appeared before the same committee and was asked his opinion of General Shinsecki’s remarks pertaining to troop deployment numbers. Wolfowitz said General Shinsecki was “wildly off the mark” He went on to say that he thought a much smaller force would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said that since there was no history of ethnic tension in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome our troops as liberators that “stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible,” but would oppose a long-term occupation force. Continuing, he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. “I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction.” Mr. Wolfowitz also offered that he could not think of a scenario where it would take more people to keep the peace than it would to win the war. Remember that these comments were all made before the war began. What did Mr. Rumsfeld have to say about the matter? “The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. Forces I think is far off the mark.” When General Shinsecki retired from active duty, guess who was conspicuously absent from the ceremony? Was that also a silent message to the rest of the General Officer Corps? I believe it was interpreted as such.
General Shinsecki, had about eighteen months left to serve in his term as CSA, when out of the blue, his replacement was identified publicly. Within Army circles this was perceived as a shot across the bow, a slap in the kisser, no CSA’s replacement had ever been named that far in advance before. General Shinsecki was more or less marginalized for the rest of his term, and the Secretary of the Army, Thomas White was issued his pink slip and vanished almost overnight quietly. What was the question again? Why did the current batch of retired Generals not speak out earlier? I offer this as a possible explanation; they didn’t want to be Shinseckifried.
I like to listen to Rush Limbaugh, but the last few days, I’ve been rather angry at the almost cavalier manner he has written off the comments of the Generals as a simple case of sour grapes over Mr. Rumsfeld’s leadership style. Excuse me Rush, but these men have all been in the Army for over thirty years, am I to understand that they never encountered a leader with Mr. Rumsfeld’s style before? I reject that theory. Rush also theorized that the Generals were trying to hype books they were writing, but as far as I know only General Zinni has a book coming out. I heard a caller to Limbaugh’s show, claiming to be a retired officer who stated, that the Generals are all cowards, he asked where they were before the war. That they were derelict in their sacred duty to raise these concerns before the war began. Once again, I refer you to the example of General Shinsecki and Thomas White. I heard another caller to Limbaugh’s show ask why, if these Generals felt such strong doubt about the campaign plan why did they not resign? I offer the example of my own experience in the Army. You can disagree all you want, but you support the boss’s decision and that’s all there is to it. You must be a team player in the Army if you want to survive and prosper. For a General Officer to resign in protest seems counter productive to me. My experience taught me that since seeing to the overall welfare of my troops was priority number one during peace time and number two during war that the best course of action when faced with this dilemma is to go along with the plan and do your best to lesson any negative impact on your troops as much as possible. To maintain positive control over everything you can within your sphere of influence, whatever that might be. That is what I call acting on a sacred duty, making the best of the situation. Resigning in protest is tantamount to quitting on your troops, leaving them flapping in the breeze under brand new leadership on the eve of war is stupid and selfish.
The victory that those critical of the Generals always point to in the overthrow of the Hussein regime was not due to any brilliant campaign plan. It was the result of courageous, smart, ingenuous captains, lieutenants and sergeants leading their troops during the run up country and in the Thunder Runs. Our troops were victorious in the combat phase of OIF despite the campaign plan, not because of it. And while I’m on the subject of the campaign plan, I have heard the statement along the lines that look, General Franks was in command and yet he is not criticizing the prosecution of OIF. Well, yeah. Of course he isn’t going to offer a criticism for to do so would mean he is criticizing himself. Lost in the debate are small facts not widely known, facts like General Franks’ original campaign plan called for the deployment of some 300,000 troops and a prolonged air campaign similar to Desert Storm. How did the troop level get cut by 100,000 or so you might ask; good question. Because I think that is not what the SecDef wanted, General Franks was sent back to the drawing board on multiple occasions until I believe it incrementally morphed into Mr. Rumsfeld’s campaign plan. Mr. Rumsfeld had been eager to shake the Army up, to transform it, this is a good thing. But the Army, being as steeped in tradition as it is, as big and cumbersome as it is, and given it’s deadly profession is an organization that plans slowly and methodically if time permits, so large that it moves slowly and cautiously if time permits, and with the consequences of failure so ominous, that it is somewhat risk averse, Army brass wants to try and make sure they have all bases covered, and I happen to think that is a good thing. With the luxury of hindsight, it seems to me plausible, that Mr. Rumsfeld used the battle fields of Iraq as a way to validate his vision of the new, transformed Army, in forcing the Army to speed up the planning process, forcing it to send in the ground forces without a prolonged air campaign he was showing the Army brass that the old ways may not always be necessary. This is why I say our troops obtained victory despite the campaign plan, not because of it. But this forced our troops to fight without a tested and approved doctrine. According to some Army leaders every unit movement during the combat phase was movement to contact, this form of movement is more physically and emotionally exhausting than you can imagine, it is also the slowest. But the greatest disadvantage to this form of tactical movement is that you do not control the terrain, you move through it and bypass it, leaving it empty for the enemy to reoccupy and attack the next formation to move through. This is where a higher troop level makes sense, along with giving the land forces more flexibility to keeping law and order in the streets during the post combat phase. Mr. Rumsfeld is also an advocate of high tech equipment, nothing wrong with that. However, when it comes to gathering raw intelligence, nothing can beat a scout team with binoculars and a radio. These are the commander’s eyes and ears, helping him to form a picture of the enemy disposition in his zone so that he can plan accordingly. Satellite photographs are of little use to a division commander, and of no use to the tactical commander. Intelligence should be pushed up, not down. The intelligence information in a satellite photographs are degradable, it loses its usefulness quickly as the enemy moves his forces. In short, our troops fought OIF using an ad hoc; make it up as you go doctrine against an enemy they did not expect. I contend that OIF should have been prosecuted using the latest doctrine that our troops were trained in, equipped for and expert at, rather than to fight relying almost solely on their ingenuity.
What we have in Iraq is a slow, ponderous move toward some form of democracy. I’m not personally in agreement that Mr. Rumsfeld need resign. We have come too far in this effort under his leadership. I think we should see it through until he sees fit to resign, or we win. But the lesson we seem to relearn over and over again is that this is what you get when civilian leadership puts any kind of constraints on an Army at war. Politicians and statesmen have years to try and solve international issues peacefully, but when they decide that further negotiations will bear no fruit, and they turn it over to the military they should turn it over to them completely, that they should not demand or even suggest to the military how to prosecute it. History tells us that when this occurs, we end up with an unsatisfactory conclusion to the war. Korea, it was seen by our politicians as a police action, and our forces were constrained for fear of widening the war and the entrance of China, what happened? China entered the war and prolonged it. Vietnam, politicians told our troops where you can bomb and shoot and where you can’t, and what happened? We lost. Desert Storm, rather than complete the annihilation of the Iraqi Army retreating north, we were ordered to cease fire, in order to appear humane, what happened? We are back there now, fighting over some of the same territory yet again. Do you see a pattern here?
Mr. Rumsfeld is an honorable man, and a great Secretary of Defense. But he was a Navy pilot. With this being his military background, it is understandable that he is the kind of leader who demands quick action, some pilots fly by the seat of their pants, it is the nature of their kind of war. But this does not translate well when it comes to an infantry company commander, too many moving parts; a lot of coordination is required. It seems that Mr. Rumsfeld has little patience for this, but I think he would have been better served to have heeded the advice of General Shinsecki, and the former Secretary of State General Powell. There is no shame in deploying more troops than you need in the opening stage of a war. The Rock is just a grumpy, crusty old noncommissioned officer, but I think it better to have more troops than you need and have the luxury of withdrawing them at your leisure as the mission permits.
I have heard one crackpot politician after another attempt to put some kind of spin on the issue in order to position themselves in a favorable political position and from Rush Limbaugh complete with some moronic callers to his show, to John Stewart, I've heard radio and TV personalities characterize the dispute as an all or nothing affair yet they only succeed in demonstrating how precious little they know about the inner workings of the Army. I'm not a retired General Officer, I'm a retired Noncommissioned Officer, just a dumb crusty old grunt with an opinion. But I do know a little bit about leadership, gained through twenty years of continuous, honorable active duty service to this wonderful nation in the United States Army including combat in Iraq. I most certainly understand this issue better than 90% of our current elected members of the federal government, Rush Limbaugh or John Stewart.
I will begin by saying that there is blame enough to go all around regarding the disintegration of cohesion between the uniformed and civilian leaders at the Pentagon.
Some are asking the obvious question, where were these retired Generals with their critical statements before the war began? First of all, none of us are privy to any conversations that may have occurred in the planning phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, (OIF).
It is the opinion of The Rock that most of the General Officer Corps hesitated to voice disagreement with Mr. Rumsfeld prior to OIF because they feared that their career may have been in jeopardy, why? Let us go back in time shall we?
If you are familiar with the military you might know what the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is, if not, look it up. During the most recent QDR, there were some questions raised concerning a new artillery weapons system known as the Crusader. It had been pretty much common knowledge that the land forces of the USA had been at a disadvantage in the indirect fire weapons systems for some time in fact, the Iraqi Army during Desert Storm was in possession of more and better quality artillery systems that the Army so it’s a good thing they did not know how to employ them, but I digress. The Crusader had gone over budget as usual, and it became the issue of an internal Pentagon debate. Former Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) General Eric Shinsecki supported the Crusader platform as did the former Secretary of the Army (SA) Brigadier General (Retired) Thomas White. The Secretary of Defense (SecDef) Donald Rumsfeld as well as the Deputy Secretary of Defense (DSecDef) Paul Wolfowitz was not as inclined to support Crusader. To cut to the chase, the Crusader was cancelled. I think this apparently disappointed some Army brass. I think this is where the cohesion between the civilian and uniformed members of DoD suffered a parting of ways and the command climate began to degenerate with the civilian leadership of the opinion that Army brass was stuck in Cold War mode and the uniformed leadership of the opinion that they were being ignored.
During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the CSA was responding to general questions in reference to the QDR. General Shinsecki was asked what his thoughts on troop level deployments were. The CSA obviously did not want to answer that question but he eventually relented and gave an estimate; several hundred thousand troops. Not to win the battle, but to keep law and order in the streets of Iraq. The former SA, Thomas White echoed the sentiments of the CSA on the matter in his own testimony before the committee. So, we have two honorable men giving an honest answer to direct, specific questions asked by members of a committee assigned to provide a measure of oversight to military matters. What was the result of their testimony? Well, the liberal media had some fun with it, attempted to spin it in the usual manner. But shortly after both the CSA and the SA provided these estimates the DSecDef, Paul Wolfowitz appeared before the same committee and was asked his opinion of General Shinsecki’s remarks pertaining to troop deployment numbers. Wolfowitz said General Shinsecki was “wildly off the mark” He went on to say that he thought a much smaller force would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said that since there was no history of ethnic tension in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome our troops as liberators that “stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible,” but would oppose a long-term occupation force. Continuing, he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. “I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction.” Mr. Wolfowitz also offered that he could not think of a scenario where it would take more people to keep the peace than it would to win the war. Remember that these comments were all made before the war began. What did Mr. Rumsfeld have to say about the matter? “The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. Forces I think is far off the mark.” When General Shinsecki retired from active duty, guess who was conspicuously absent from the ceremony? Was that also a silent message to the rest of the General Officer Corps? I believe it was interpreted as such.
General Shinsecki, had about eighteen months left to serve in his term as CSA, when out of the blue, his replacement was identified publicly. Within Army circles this was perceived as a shot across the bow, a slap in the kisser, no CSA’s replacement had ever been named that far in advance before. General Shinsecki was more or less marginalized for the rest of his term, and the Secretary of the Army, Thomas White was issued his pink slip and vanished almost overnight quietly. What was the question again? Why did the current batch of retired Generals not speak out earlier? I offer this as a possible explanation; they didn’t want to be Shinseckifried.
I like to listen to Rush Limbaugh, but the last few days, I’ve been rather angry at the almost cavalier manner he has written off the comments of the Generals as a simple case of sour grapes over Mr. Rumsfeld’s leadership style. Excuse me Rush, but these men have all been in the Army for over thirty years, am I to understand that they never encountered a leader with Mr. Rumsfeld’s style before? I reject that theory. Rush also theorized that the Generals were trying to hype books they were writing, but as far as I know only General Zinni has a book coming out. I heard a caller to Limbaugh’s show, claiming to be a retired officer who stated, that the Generals are all cowards, he asked where they were before the war. That they were derelict in their sacred duty to raise these concerns before the war began. Once again, I refer you to the example of General Shinsecki and Thomas White. I heard another caller to Limbaugh’s show ask why, if these Generals felt such strong doubt about the campaign plan why did they not resign? I offer the example of my own experience in the Army. You can disagree all you want, but you support the boss’s decision and that’s all there is to it. You must be a team player in the Army if you want to survive and prosper. For a General Officer to resign in protest seems counter productive to me. My experience taught me that since seeing to the overall welfare of my troops was priority number one during peace time and number two during war that the best course of action when faced with this dilemma is to go along with the plan and do your best to lesson any negative impact on your troops as much as possible. To maintain positive control over everything you can within your sphere of influence, whatever that might be. That is what I call acting on a sacred duty, making the best of the situation. Resigning in protest is tantamount to quitting on your troops, leaving them flapping in the breeze under brand new leadership on the eve of war is stupid and selfish.
The victory that those critical of the Generals always point to in the overthrow of the Hussein regime was not due to any brilliant campaign plan. It was the result of courageous, smart, ingenuous captains, lieutenants and sergeants leading their troops during the run up country and in the Thunder Runs. Our troops were victorious in the combat phase of OIF despite the campaign plan, not because of it. And while I’m on the subject of the campaign plan, I have heard the statement along the lines that look, General Franks was in command and yet he is not criticizing the prosecution of OIF. Well, yeah. Of course he isn’t going to offer a criticism for to do so would mean he is criticizing himself. Lost in the debate are small facts not widely known, facts like General Franks’ original campaign plan called for the deployment of some 300,000 troops and a prolonged air campaign similar to Desert Storm. How did the troop level get cut by 100,000 or so you might ask; good question. Because I think that is not what the SecDef wanted, General Franks was sent back to the drawing board on multiple occasions until I believe it incrementally morphed into Mr. Rumsfeld’s campaign plan. Mr. Rumsfeld had been eager to shake the Army up, to transform it, this is a good thing. But the Army, being as steeped in tradition as it is, as big and cumbersome as it is, and given it’s deadly profession is an organization that plans slowly and methodically if time permits, so large that it moves slowly and cautiously if time permits, and with the consequences of failure so ominous, that it is somewhat risk averse, Army brass wants to try and make sure they have all bases covered, and I happen to think that is a good thing. With the luxury of hindsight, it seems to me plausible, that Mr. Rumsfeld used the battle fields of Iraq as a way to validate his vision of the new, transformed Army, in forcing the Army to speed up the planning process, forcing it to send in the ground forces without a prolonged air campaign he was showing the Army brass that the old ways may not always be necessary. This is why I say our troops obtained victory despite the campaign plan, not because of it. But this forced our troops to fight without a tested and approved doctrine. According to some Army leaders every unit movement during the combat phase was movement to contact, this form of movement is more physically and emotionally exhausting than you can imagine, it is also the slowest. But the greatest disadvantage to this form of tactical movement is that you do not control the terrain, you move through it and bypass it, leaving it empty for the enemy to reoccupy and attack the next formation to move through. This is where a higher troop level makes sense, along with giving the land forces more flexibility to keeping law and order in the streets during the post combat phase. Mr. Rumsfeld is also an advocate of high tech equipment, nothing wrong with that. However, when it comes to gathering raw intelligence, nothing can beat a scout team with binoculars and a radio. These are the commander’s eyes and ears, helping him to form a picture of the enemy disposition in his zone so that he can plan accordingly. Satellite photographs are of little use to a division commander, and of no use to the tactical commander. Intelligence should be pushed up, not down. The intelligence information in a satellite photographs are degradable, it loses its usefulness quickly as the enemy moves his forces. In short, our troops fought OIF using an ad hoc; make it up as you go doctrine against an enemy they did not expect. I contend that OIF should have been prosecuted using the latest doctrine that our troops were trained in, equipped for and expert at, rather than to fight relying almost solely on their ingenuity.
What we have in Iraq is a slow, ponderous move toward some form of democracy. I’m not personally in agreement that Mr. Rumsfeld need resign. We have come too far in this effort under his leadership. I think we should see it through until he sees fit to resign, or we win. But the lesson we seem to relearn over and over again is that this is what you get when civilian leadership puts any kind of constraints on an Army at war. Politicians and statesmen have years to try and solve international issues peacefully, but when they decide that further negotiations will bear no fruit, and they turn it over to the military they should turn it over to them completely, that they should not demand or even suggest to the military how to prosecute it. History tells us that when this occurs, we end up with an unsatisfactory conclusion to the war. Korea, it was seen by our politicians as a police action, and our forces were constrained for fear of widening the war and the entrance of China, what happened? China entered the war and prolonged it. Vietnam, politicians told our troops where you can bomb and shoot and where you can’t, and what happened? We lost. Desert Storm, rather than complete the annihilation of the Iraqi Army retreating north, we were ordered to cease fire, in order to appear humane, what happened? We are back there now, fighting over some of the same territory yet again. Do you see a pattern here?
Mr. Rumsfeld is an honorable man, and a great Secretary of Defense. But he was a Navy pilot. With this being his military background, it is understandable that he is the kind of leader who demands quick action, some pilots fly by the seat of their pants, it is the nature of their kind of war. But this does not translate well when it comes to an infantry company commander, too many moving parts; a lot of coordination is required. It seems that Mr. Rumsfeld has little patience for this, but I think he would have been better served to have heeded the advice of General Shinsecki, and the former Secretary of State General Powell. There is no shame in deploying more troops than you need in the opening stage of a war. The Rock is just a grumpy, crusty old noncommissioned officer, but I think it better to have more troops than you need and have the luxury of withdrawing them at your leisure as the mission permits.
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