It make one wonder...why are these rightwing warmongering assholes so slow
to figure it out...
redvet wrote:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080418/wl_mcclatchy/2913186_1
> Pentagon institute calls Iraq war 'a major debacle' with outcome 'in
> doubt'
> By Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott, McClatchy Newspapers Thu Apr
> 17, 8:38 PM ET
>
> WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the
> outcome "is in doubt" despite improvements in security from the
> buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published
> Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.
>
> The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh
> doubts about President Bush 's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq
> just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop
> reductions.
>
> The report carries considerable weight because it was written by
> Joseph Collins , a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in
> part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence
> officials who played roles in prewar preparations.
>
> It was published by the university's National Institute for Strategic
> Studies , a Defense Department research center.
>
> "Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the
> status of a major war and a major debacle," says the report's opening
> line.
>
> At the time the report was written last fall, more than 4,000 U.S.
> and foreign troops, more than 7,500 Iraqi security forces and as many
> as 82,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed and tens of thousands of
> others wounded, while the cost of the war since March 2003 was
> estimated at $450 billion .
>
> "No one as yet has calculated the costs of long-term veterans'
> benefits or the total impact on service personnel and materiel,"
> wrote Collins, who was involved in planning post-invasion humanitarian
> operations.
>
> The report said that the United States has suffered serious political
> costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover,
> operations in Iraq have diverted "manpower, materiel and the attention
> of decision-makers" from "all other efforts in the war on terror" and
> severely strained the U.S. armed forces.
>
> "Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there (in Iraq ) were
> designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at
> least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran
> to expand its influence throughout the Middle East ," the report
> continued.
>
> The addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq last year to halt the
> country's descent into all-out civil war has improved security, but
> not enough to ensure that the country emerges as a stable democracy at
> peace with its neighbors, the report said.
>
> "Despite impressive progress in security, the outcome of the war is in
> doubt," said the report. "Strong majorities of both Iraqis and
> Americans favor some sort of U.S. withdrawal. Intelligence analysts,
> however, remind us that the only thing worse than an Iraq with an
> American army may be an Iraq after a rapid withdrawal of that army."
>
> "For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a 'must win,'
> but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David
> Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a 'can't win.'"
>
> The report lays much of the blame for what went wrong in Iraq after
> the initial U.S. victory at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald
> H. Rumsfeld . It says that in November 2001 , before the war in
> Afghanistan was over, President Bush asked Rumsfeld "to begin planning
> in secret for potential military operations against Iraq ."
>
> Rumsfeld, who was closely allied with Vice President Dick Cheney ,
> bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the report says, and became "the
> direct supervisor of the combatant commanders."
>
> " . . . the aggressive, hands-on Rumsfeld," it continues, "cajoled and
> pushed his way toward a small force and a lightning fast operation."
> Later, he shut down the military's computerized deployment system,
> "questioning, delaying or deleting units on the numerous deployment
> orders that came across his desk."
>
> In part because "long, costly, manpower-intensive post-combat
> operations were anathema to Rumsfeld," the report says, the U.S. was
> unprepared to fight what Collins calls "War B," the battle against
> insurgents and sectarian violence that began in mid-2003, shortly
> after "War A," the fight against Saddam Hussein's forces, ended.
>
> Compounding the problem was a series of faulty assumptions made by
> Bush's top aides, among them an expectation fed by Iraqi exiles that
> Iraqis would be grateful to America for liberating them from Saddam's
> dictatorship. The administration also expected that " Iraq without
> Saddam could manage and fund its own reconstruction."
>
> The report also singles out the Bush administration's national
> security apparatus and implicitly President Bush and both of his
> national security advisers, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley ,
> saying that "senior national security officials exhibited in many
> instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where
> diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect."
>
> Collins ends his report by quoting Winston Churchill , who said: "Let
> us learn our lessons. Never, never believe any war will be smooth and
> easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the
> tides and hurricanes he will encounter. . . . Always remember, however
> sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if
> the other man did not think that he also had a chance."
>
> To read the report:
>
> www.ndu.edu/inss/Occasional_Papers/OP5.pdf
>
>
> =====
>
> In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
> distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
> interest in receiving the included information for research and
> educational purposes.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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