Rumsfeld to step down

[snizo]

I'm sure if they want Rumsfeld subpoenaed, they will get him to testify regardless of where he is.

I realize that, but a subpoena to a retired government exec isn't quite as disruptive or news worthy as pulling the current Secretary of Defense in.

 

[Tex_Hill]

Here's an interesting piece from the Army Times on Rumsfeld stepping down:
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2344231.php

 

[nittany03]

I realize that, but a subpoena to a retired government exec isn't quite as disruptive or news worthy as pulling the current Secretary of Defense in.

Dunno, I think enough liberals hate his guts that it would still get some play in the newsroom.

 

[pourts]

the Powell Doctrine ... makes to much sense. too bad some are (were) to arrogant and stubborn to use it.

... every resource and tool should be used to achieve overwhelming force against the enemy, minimizing US casualties and ending the conflict quickly by forcing the weaker force to capitulate.

S/F

Maybe this calls for a seperate discussion on the Powell doctrine as it relates to Iraq, but didn't we have overwhelming force compared to the enemy? Three weeks to Baghdad was overwhelming force. Also, what do you do if the other force is unwilling to capitulate? We just nuked Japan, but I don't think that will work now.

I'm not an expert on the Powell doctrine, but it seems to me the only criteria not met was for "broad international support," which I think is a thing of the past. Without the threat of the Soviet Union the old alliance of Europe and the US will never again work as it did. Alliances and international support are good not in and of themselves, but as tools. And they aren't meant to last forever, either. Our great new "friends" the Russians and the Chinese are willing to let just about anything happen (Iranian nukes) if it takes the US down a peg.

I'm also not a political expert, but why the hell didn't Bush let Rumsfeld retire on his own terms a couple weeks ago? Maybe it just took this long to find somebody willing to take the job. I know I wouldn't want it.

 

[Cate]

The problem with the Powell doctrine in re: Iraq is just as pourts said. It's not that we didn't go in with sufficient force; it's that we weren't prepared for what came next. If you consider that the enemy at the time of the initial invasion was Saddam Hussein et al, they were routed fairly quickly. Using more force than was used would have done nothing to prevent the insurgency that rose up later or the civil conflicts that followed the insurgency. That is, unless you used enough force to kill literally everyone in the country, in which case the nature of your mission has really shifted quite a bit.

 

[Fly Navy]

Maybe this calls for a seperate discussion on the Powell doctrine as it relates to Iraq, but didn't we have overwhelming force compared to the enemy? Three weeks to Baghdad was overwhelming force. Also, what do you do if the other force is unwilling to capitulate? We just nuked Japan, but I don't think that will work now.

We fought the war on the cheap. That was the Rumsfield strategy. Overwhelming force was Desert Storm. We literally crushed the Iraqi military into dust.

Also, saying "we just nuked Japan" is over-simplification. Plans were in motion to invade Japan. It would have been bad.

 

[Brett327]

We fought the war on the cheap. That was the Rumsfield strategy. Overwhelming force was Desert Storm. We literally crushed the Iraqi military into dust.

Also, saying "we just nuked Japan" is over-simplification. Plans were in motion to invade Japan. It would have been bad.

Exactly what I was going to say. OIF did not adhere to the Powell doctrine, no matter how quickly the initial military victory was achieved. This probably deserves a thread split because it's an important and complex topic worthy of discussion.

Brett

 

[pourts]

Is the Powell doctrine still relevant?

Exactly what I was going to say. OIF did not adhere to the Powell doctrine, no matter how quickly the initial military victory was achieved. This probably deserves a thread split because it's an important and complex topic worthy of discussion.

Brett

Agree with the thread split idea, but that's above my paygrade .

Fly Navy: One major lesson of Desert Storm was that huge coalitions are unwieldy and prevent doing all that's necessary to accomplish the mission. Another lesson was that the Iraqi's were willing to rise up and overthrow Saddam with our help, but we hung them out to dry. We let a horrible dictator stay in power because it was more convenient for us... shame on us. Also, if I remember correctly, 1/2 of the Republican Guard divisions never saw action in Desert Storm because they stayed near Baghdad. Not that they would have given us much trouble at all.

As for "nuking Japan," that was an ancillary point to the larger question of the relevance of the Powell doctrine in today's conflict, which I will call Global Jihad. The Powell doctrine is great, but how does it work against an enemy that won't capitulate and cannot be "crushed" on a battlefield through overwhelming force? How does "overwhelming force" work if the enemy hides in hospitals and behind women and children? Lastly, how does the Powell doctrine work in an age when the old alliance of Europe and the USA is little more than an anachronism? How do we apply the Powell doctrine to conflicts with organizations like Hezbollah, which are non-state actors with significant ties to nation-states?

All diplomacy needs to have a credible threat of military force behind it to be effective--even if that means "going it alone." This is one of the reasons our diplomacy with Iran and N. Korea is ineffective lately. Negotiating with no credible threat of force is like playing "Deal or no Deal?" and all you have left are the $10, $100, $1, $50, $.01, $1000, $250, $500 and $100,000. The banker isn't going to give you a good deal.

 

[Fly Navy]

Fly Navy: One major lesson of Desert Storm was that huge coalitions are unwieldy and prevent doing all that's necessary to accomplish the mission. Another lesson was that the Iraqi's were willing to rise up and overthrow Saddam with our help, but we hung them out to dry. We let a horrible dictator stay in power because it was more convenient for us... shame on us. Also, if I remember correctly, 1/2 of the Republican Guard divisions never saw action in Desert Storm because they stayed near Baghdad. Not that they would have given us much trouble at all.

A couple points:

- I never argued anything about coalitions. I just mentioned that Desert Storm was defining as crushing the enemy with overwhleming force. Your point about coalitions doesn't have anything to do with this.

- Our mission was never to overthrow the Iraqi government, it was to eject Iraq out of Kuwait. We did that. Was it ****ty to hang the rebellion out to dry? Yes. Was it our mission to support them? No.

 

[pourts]

A couple points:

- I never argued anything about coalitions. I just mentioned that Desert Storm was defining as crushing the enemy with overwhleming force. Your point about coalitions doesn't have anything to do with this.

- Our mission was never to overthrow the Iraqi government, it was to eject Iraq out of Kuwait. We did that. Was it ****ty to hang the rebellion out to dry? Yes. Was it our mission to support them? No.

You're right, you didn't say any of those things. We had been comparing Desert Storm and OIF, talking about Powell doctrine, and those things popped in my head.

However, I have a hard time (like Cate said) understanding how anyone can say we didn't have overwhelming force in OIF. Granted, once the nature of the enemy changed, and things like air power, artillery and cruise missiles were no longer viable force multipliers, then we ceased to have "overwhelming force."

 

[Huggy Bear]

You're right, you didn't say any of those things. We had been comparing Desert Storm and OIF, talking about Powell doctrine, and those things popped in my head.

However, I have a hard time (like Cate said) understanding how anyone can say we didn't have overwhelming force in OIF. Granted, once the nature of the enemy changed, and things like air power, artillery and cruise missiles were no longer viable force multipliers, then we ceased to have "overwhelming force."

I don't know that we had "overwhelming" force in OIF. In the north, where I flew, it was only a couple of thousand special forces troops supported by two carrier air wings flying 24/7. That was all we had vs. 100,000+ Iraqi military. We may not have been overwhelming, but we were enough vs. a demoralized and pragmatic enemy. I think whomever said it was right, we were fighting this war on the cheap.

 

[theduke]

Good Riddance, I had been hoping for three years he would resign. Can I say that now that he is gone? If not, then Mods just delete this whole post (seriously)

.

 

[eddie]

We did not have a reconstruction strategy early...ie..after that gap of time after combat operations and before the insurgency. if we had done something during this block of time a lot of this "insurgency" could have been prevented... Most of those same people argue that not having a plan during this period of time is one of the major reasons there was an insurgency.

THIS is the political and military lesson that history will learn from this war; I do not believe that boots on the ground will have been the deciding factor...


imho, of course.

 

[jarhead]

We fought the war on the cheap.

.

and we still are fighting it on the cheap ... at the expense of American lives.

I copied this from wikipedia ... it's a basic explanation of the Powell Doctrine.

"The questions posed by the Powell Doctrine, which should be answered affirmatively before military action, are:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?"

Number 8 was definitely not answered. The “Coalition of the Willing” was laughable. I don't think #5 or #6 was fully answered either, prior to invading Iraq, which is unfortunate because it’s not like Iraq sprung up overnight. We had many years to study it and should have had a plan of how we were going to occupy Iraq after an invasion. A country about the size of California with a population of 26 million needs a more than 150000 troops to occupy it. After pounding Iraq from the air and controlling the majority of their imports for 12 years, there was little doubt that we couldn’t take over Iraq with a minimal ground force. Desert Storm proved the Iraqi Army would give up if beat down from an aerial bombardment. It did it again in OIF. What our civilian leaders did not plan for was the occupation that was to follow. Some extremely poor decisions were made, by civilians not Generals, which allowed the insurgency to build.

S/F

 

[invertedflyer]

Wow I didn't think my mentioning of the Powell Doctrine would start such a great discussion. Jarhead, Retreadtrand, we see eye-to-eye. My unit was part of the first push during the war (I wasn't with them at the time, but I'll relate some of their experiences)...one of the main points is that, although our blitzkrieg style tactics of bypasing Nasiriya, Al Kut etc. worked and, by and large, demoralized the enemy and took Baghdad.... it left a number of pockets of resistance in its wake. Fighting sprung up in Nasiriyah and a number of other cities... If we would have gone in with 350,000 troops like Gen. Shinseki had recommended (under the Powell Doctrine) then our invasion would have been more thorough. Granted, it would have been more slow moving but, it may have cleared out much of the resistance early on.

Outside of that, responding to your posts pourts... It truly depends on how you view the situation. If you look through the Powell Doctrine it should be obvious to you that many of the conditions were not met. The main questions: Was Iraq a direct threat to our national security? And should we proceed without the cooperation of the international community? I would say, if your national security was indeed being threated... ofcourse carry on with a military campaign.... but chances our that our intelligence community knew that the tie between terrorism and Iraq was weak, if not non-existant. Also, we certainly didn't exhaust all options before invading... the inspectors were there all of 4 months.

One major lesson of Desert Storm was that huge coalitions are unwieldy and prevent doing all that's necessary to accomplish the mission.

In short, If Iraq isn't a threat to national security, then it should be the burden of the international community. As far as your comment on coalitions essentially being a drag... I would concede that our coalition in 1991 was one of the most successful in history. We operated from Saudi and Turkish bases, as well as from Qatar, Bahrain, UAE etc., and we ended up letting the Saudi military parade through the streets of Kuwait. If anything we proved the importance and significance of said coalition. Anyway, just a few thoughts from a groundpounder.
/rant