Iraq Draft Delay Irks Rumsfeld

[SmoothRide]

Iraq draft delay (Video INcluded)
irkhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1203605.cmss Rumsfeld

ASUNCION (PARAGUAY): US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday called Iraq's weeklong delay in drafting a new constitution "not helpful", but said he was confident the postponement would not push back a planned October 15 referendum on the document.
Rumsfeld's remarks were more critical than those made by president Bush and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on Monday after the seven-day delay was announced in Baghdad. Bush played down the delay and Rice said, "We are witnessing democracy at work in Iraq."

Asked about the delay in completing the constitution, Rumsfeld said, "The sooner it is done, the fewer Iraqis that will be killed, the fewer Americans or coalition forces that will be killed." MORE

[MunnyBaggs]

Iraq draft delay (Video INcluded)
irkhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1203605.cmss Rumsfeld

ASUNCION (PARAGUAY): US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday called Iraq's weeklong delay in drafting a new constitution "not helpful", but said he was confident the postponement would not push back a planned October 15 referendum on the document.
Rumsfeld's remarks were more critical than those made by president Bush and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on Monday after the seven-day delay was announced in Baghdad. Bush played down the delay and Rice said, "We are witnessing democracy at work in Iraq."

Asked about the delay in completing the constitution, Rumsfeld said, "The sooner it is done, the fewer Iraqis that will be killed, the fewer Americans or coalition forces that will be killed." MORE

Methinks mr Rumfeld is not playing with a full deck. Time for retirement, Rummy.

[Roger]

Methinks mr Rumfeld is not playing with a full deck. Time for retirement, Rummy.
This man has quite an extensive resume he bring's to the table. I think he's very good at his job and would not want to see him replaced unless he (himself), or the President ask's him to step down. :happy64:

[jonny]

Methinks mr Rumfeld is not playing with a full deck. Time for retirement, Rummy.

Now why would you say that? Everything he said makes perfect sense.

[MunnyBaggs]

This man has quite an extensive resume he bring's to the table. I think he's very good at his job and would not want to see him replaced unless he (himself), or the President ask's him to step down. :happy64:

He gets far more credit than he deserves for the invasion of Afghan and the intitial invasion of Iraq. And he's made many blunders in Iraq after entering Baghdad. Thus I do not put a lot of credibility in his spin on things.

[kingkong]

He gets far more credit than he deserves for the invasion of Afghan and the intitial invasion of Iraq. And he's made many blunders in Iraq after entering Baghdad. Thus I do not put a lot of credibility in his spin on things.

Not trying to argue, but you don't give him enough credit.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/12/28/politics/main260175.shtml

[tmorr37]

Methinks mr Rumfeld is not playing with a full deck. Time for retirement, Rummy.

why would you say that

[tmorr37]

Methinks MunnyBaggs is a liberal

[kingkong]

One more thing before I go, I'm not claiming I understand everything Rumsfeld does. At times he seems out of step with the administration.

[Michael44]

I can honestly say as an admitted conservative that Mr. Rumsfield has done a creditble job even though at times he seems frustrated and does not do a good job at composing his frustration.
At worst I believe it may be time for Mr. Rumsfield to retire.
I know as a business owner myself if one of my staff attempted to retire two times as Rummy claims he has, I would let him.

[RogerL]

I'm sure people know already that I'm a die-hard conservative, but here are my objective thoughts about the job Donald Rumsfeld has done as SecDef.

On Afghanistan, he was not the one who came up with the plan to use the Northern Alliance to help topple the Taliban. Surprisingly it was CIA Director George Tenet of "slam dunk" fame who had the original plans. Those worked like a charm. Rumsfeld deserves credit, as does Chairman Richard Myers, for the specific battleplan but Tenet deserves the most credit.

I can identify two errors that MAY have been committed. One may have come at Tora Bora, though I am not at all convinced there were errors committed there. Critics say that we should not have relied on locals to close the noose around Tora Bora. Defenders say that that area was extremely difficult to close off with US troops alone since we didn't know the mountainous area very well at all. So who knows the real truth here. We don't even know if bin Laden was actually there.

The other whopper of an error was due to the JAG Corps. A Predator drone identified Mullah Omar's caravan, but a JAG prevented us from firing a missile and killing him. Better laid out guidelines might have helped us avoid that fiasco.

As for Iraq, I'm not convinced that errors made there were avoidable. It's easy for armchair generals who can see things after the fact to second guess. The military prepared for the mother of all battles on the ground to begin with. That part succeeded beyond our wildest dreams with the glitches being that we overran our supply lines occasionally. Well, that happened to George Patton, too, in his dash across France.

What we didn't count on was the disintegration of the Iraqi army. Intelligence found later shows that the plan was to permit the US Army to "win" initially, so the collapse of the army was somewhat planned as Saddam intended from the beginning to wage a guerilla-style war.

I take Paul Bremer's word for it when he says that there wasn't an army left to disband. As for de-Baathification, who knows whether that would have helped or not. Patton was criticized for not de-Nazifying but he kept the trains running.

I do know that those saying we should have relied on the Republican Guards to be misguided. The one time we tried was with the Fallujah Brigade. We know how much of a fiasco that was as the general sympathized with the insurgency, who replaced another Republican Guard general thought to sympathize with the insurgents. What else could we have done?

Perhaps we should have taken Fallujah in April rather than stopping. That was a legitimate criticism, and that goes to Rumsfeld and Myers. Allowing Fallujah to fester allowed them to build a safe base for far too long.

Another criticism is an over-reliance on untrained National Guardsmen, which led to incidents like Abu Ghraib. Well, the military had been gutted during the first Bush and Clinton Administrations and was currently undergoing a transition to smaller, more mobile units when 9/11 came upon us. So Rumsfeld said that he had to fight with what he had.

In conclusion, I have to say that we've never fought this type of war before. Does anyone think that they could have done better in pre-planning? Who knows? As they say, battleplans never survive contact with the enemy. I'm not willing to second-guess Rumsfeld in his decision-making.

I do see that the strategy is succeeding in spite of the enormous negativity put out by the mainstream media. No plan goes without bumps along the way. 1946 Germany was just as tough, if not tougher. I suggest looking up what happened in post-war Germany to see that everything was not a bed of roses either.

[Bill in Dc]

mr. rumsfeld displays some very mcnamara-esque tendencies: over-emphasis on supply chain management, just-in-time deployments, etc., ad nauseam ... these are not military terms, they are business terms ... sorry folks, the military is not a business, driven lean by market forces ... doesn't work that way ... ex. do you think eisenhower and churchill planned d-day with the bottom-line in mind? ... nope! ... overwhelming force baby, overwhelming force ... such is the american way of war ... the "powers that be" ignored lessons learned in bosnia, kosovo, et.al., and thought they could do better ... again: nope! ... now we clean up the mess ... don't get me wrong: far more than vietnam, i deem this to be an honorable struggle (for those who don't like this assertion please e-mail me for clarification (hint: google jon t. busch: then get back to me)) ... in the end i am torn between the necessity of the action and the means by which senior leadership chose to execute the mission ...

be critical ...

believe in the mission,

bill

[RogerL]

mr. rumsfeld displays some very mcnamara-esque tendencies: over-emphasis on supply chain management, just-in-time deployments, etc., ad nauseam ... these are not military terms, they are business terms ... sorry folks, the military is not a business, driven lean by market forces ... doesn't work that way ... ex. do you think eisenhower and churchill planned d-day with the bottom-line in mind? ... nope! ... overwhelming force baby, overwhelming force ... such is the american way of war ... the "powers that be" ignored lessons learned in bosnia, kosovo, et.al., and thought they could do better ... again: nope! ... now we clean up the mess ... don't get me wrong: far more than vietnam, i deem this to be an honorable struggle (for those who don't like this assertion please e-mail me for clarification (hint: google jon t. busch: then get back to me)) ... in the end i am torn between the necessity of the action and the means by which senior leadership chose to execute the mission ...

be critical ...

believe in the mission,

bill I disagree that overwhelming force would do any better. First of all, the Iraqis are resentful of the troops who are there now. How would they have felt with an additional 100,000 or 200,000 troops? Secondly, where would they come from? We already have units going through their second and third tours of duty. And we are fighting on two fronts with units in Afghanistan, too.

The generals contributed to this decision. They felt they needed to balance military necessity with political realities inside Iraq. Even today, the military is saying that they have enough to do the job. Until they say otherwise, I'm not going to second-guess four-star generals who know a lot more than I do.

Where would you send that overwhelming force? If I had the troops, i'd probably send them to the Syrian and Iranian borders. But Iraq is the size of Texas with most of its border completely wide open desert. A million troops wouldn't be enough to defend that kind of border so we have to target our patrols and attacks to where we think the foreign terrorists are filtering through.

As an alternate thought, why do we want to keep out the foreign terrorists? There's no question they cannot defeat us militarily. It's a matter of public support that could lose us the war, not the military. Why shouldn't we let in as many terrorists as we can? Every terrorist fighting us in Iraq is one fewer infiltrating the UK or the US to conduct bombings here. We've killed or captured 50,000 in the last month. Sounds like a good track record. As a devil's advocate, I'd say let them all in so we can kill them there.

[MunnyBaggs]

Methinks MunnyBaggs is a liberal

You thinks wrong as I voted for GWB and vote mostly Republican. I fully support the war on terror including the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Sorry I don't tie nicely into a box that partisans always want to lock you into. I'll make up my own mind on every individual issue without regards to politics.

[MunnyBaggs]

why would you say that

Simple. Any Secratary of Defense with our military brains and firepower could have and would have done near identical invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We were highly successful until we reached Baghdad. To be fair one part of the Iraq invasion was not the fault of Mr. Rumsfeld as Turkey did not allow us a Northern front. That would have made a HUGE difference. By limiting us to a Kuwaiti front only, many of the Saddam loyalists in the north merely melted right back into the population with iron rule in some places. Had we that northern front more of them would have been on the front lines and been killed off. Having said that Rummy should have compensated by injecting far more troops into the battle. By not clamping down hard and heavy Rummy allowed anarchy and looting during the first days of the liberation. We lost control of many weapons dumps which "insurgents" raided freely stockpiling their murder weapons and stashing them. Only a couple of months ago did we find huge stockpiles even a couple RIGHT IN BAGHDAD. A bigger force would have found those earlier. Another problem is what some of the commanders say is a loss of control. Our divisions would gain control of one region and because of lack of manpower would have to abandon it for another. Guess what, those abandoned regions sprouted terrorists anew. I won't even go into the slow arming of our troops (or the fact that many of them have to BUY THEIR OWN PROTECTIVE GEAR!!!!). Sufface to say I love the idea of a smaller hard hitting rapid response army. But Iraq was not the place to try this experiment.

[MunnyBaggs]

I disagree that overwhelming force would do any better. First of all, the Iraqis are resentful of the troops who are there now. How would they have felt with an additional 100,000 or 200,000 troops? Secondly, where would they come from? We already have units going through their second and third tours of duty. And we are fighting on two fronts with units in Afghanistan, too.

Who cares how the enemy "feels" about how many troops we send in?? We should go to war risking our young with the intent to win and win fast to minimize their deaths. If that was the reason Rummy used less troops then I haven't been hard enough on him. Fact is he went in with this misguided "smaller faster harder" army model in mind. It was a huge mistake. But fact is you are wrong anyway. The Iraqis that are "resentful" of how many troops we have are IN THE MINORITY. The vast majority of the 25 million population of the Iraqis WANT us to win no matter what. You telling me the average Joe blow Iraqi wouldn't want more security right about now???

The generals contributed to this decision. They felt they needed to balance military necessity with political realities inside Iraq. Even today, the military is saying that they have enough to do the job. Until they say otherwise, I'm not going to second-guess four-star generals who know a lot more than I do.

And many high ranking officials do not agree with the decision so I source military minds as well. In fact a couple of them who voiced opposing opinions were demoted or re-assigned to other duties. I've been seeing small hints from Washington pop up about actually INCREASING our troop levels during Oct and Dec Iraqi elections for increased security. That would be a great move by Rummy albeit a little too little a little too late.

Where would you send that overwhelming force? If I had the troops, i'd probably send them to the Syrian and Iranian borders. But Iraq is the size of Texas with most of its border completely wide open desert. A million troops wouldn't be enough to defend that kind of border so we have to target our patrols and attacks to where we think the foreign terrorists are filtering through.

Yah think overwhelming forces might have been used to say aaahhh secure massive weapons dumps??? That mighta been a good use among many. Such as maybe controling areas we took and not letting "insurgents" retake them??? Capturing more bad guys might be one idea. And though no way to completely shut down the Iranian/Syrian borders but I'd sure like more of the good guys there to STOP THE EVER DEADLY BOMB importation going on.... I'm sure there might be other ways more force could have saved US and Iraqi civilian lives but I guess Rummy didn't see it that way............

As an alternate thought, why do we want to keep out the foreign terrorists? There's no question they cannot defeat us militarily. It's a matter of public support that could lose us the war, not the military. Why shouldn't we let in as many terrorists as we can? Every terrorist fighting us in Iraq is one fewer infiltrating the UK or the US to conduct bombings here. We've killed or captured 50,000 in the last month. Sounds like a good track record. As a devil's advocate, I'd say let them all in so we can kill them there.

Not a problem with that idea as it would have happened anyway. But surely if we want to invite a larger army to destroy we should have the proper numbers to handle it. Clearly we do not as terrorist attacks are as strong as ever. Bottom line is results are what counts. I've given Rummy as much rope as I can personally handle. But thus far his strategy has been a failure. There is good news and good things happening in Iraq, no doubt. And we will ultimately win. But the loss of life could have been reduced significantly with a more qualified Sec. of Def. That is a fact.

[Uno]

Did anyone read General Tommy Franks' book?
The politicions are NOT the architects of either Iraq or Afganistan invasions.
It was USCENTCOM. Pres Bush and Sec Def Rumsfeld gave it the green light.

I know, I know, the buck stops at the top...
But when the commanders at USCENTCOM say they need "X, Y or Z" they get it. Even today it's true.

I don't think anyone knows how to get ALL insurgents, guerillas or terrorists.
I'm not sure it can be done either.
I just can't bash someone for not knowing how to do something that even I can't answer.

I hope thier next answer is economic stimulation by postively affecting the iraqi currency!!! :happy64:

[RogerL]

Who cares how the enemy "feels" about how many troops we send in?? We should go to war risking our young with the intent to win and win fast to minimize their deaths. If that was the reason Rummy used less troops then I haven't been hard enough on him. Fact is he went in with this misguided "smaller faster harder" army model in mind. It was a huge mistake. But fact is you are wrong anyway. The Iraqis that are "resentful" of how many troops we have are IN THE MINORITY. The vast majority of the 25 million population of the Iraqis WANT us to win no matter what. You telling me the average Joe blow Iraqi wouldn't want more security right about now??? I don't care how the enemy feels but the majority of the 25 million are not the enemy. It is their friendship we need to have in order to make Iraq successful. Ask any Iraqi and they'd wish we were out yesterday. They believe troops are necessary now, but the faster we're out the happier they'll be. The "smaller, faster, harder" model started before 9/11. Remember at the very beginning of the Bush Administration, they started cutting out heavy weapons systems designed to fight the Soviets and began to regroup our armed forces into smaller units. That reorganization was underway by the time we went into Afghanistan. That was the major reason the military resisted having Congress increase the size of the military. It's more difficult to reorganize when the size is changing at the same time. As Rumsfeld said, he would have liked to have more forces, but you fight with what you have and don't wait around until you have the "perfect" military.

And many high ranking officials do not agree with the decision so I source military minds as well. In fact a couple of them who voiced opposing opinions were demoted or re-assigned to other duties. I've been seeing small hints from Washington pop up about actually INCREASING our troop levels during Oct and Dec Iraqi elections for increased security. That would be a great move by Rummy albeit a little too little a little too late. I agree it's a good move to ramp up for the elections as extra security will likely be necessary. They did a fantastic job on January 30'th for the first elections.


Yah think overwhelming forces might have been used to say aaahhh secure massive weapons dumps??? That mighta been a good use among many. Such as maybe controling areas we took and not letting "insurgents" retake them??? Capturing more bad guys might be one idea. And though no way to completely shut down the Iranian/Syrian borders but I'd sure like more of the good guys there to STOP THE EVER DEADLY BOMB importation going on.... I'm sure there might be other ways more force could have saved US and Iraqi civilian lives but I guess Rummy didn't see it that way............ If you're referring to the NY Times story they tried to foist on us just days before the election about the weapons depot with the stolen weapons, that was debunked. The weapons were gone before we got there. Also remember that documents we found after going in showed that Saddam intended to fight a guerilla-style war, so many of the weapons caches were hidden. Even today we're still finding them. Overwhelming troops can't guard what they can't find.

Also keep in mind Saddam had the 14 months we wasted dickering around at the UN to hide his weapons in the desert and most likely move his stockpiles of WMD's.

I don't recall any instances of us having to surrender territory to the insurgents because we were needed elsewhere, so I'll have to take your word for that. I've seen no news stories reporting that, and I'm usually a pretty voracious news reader.


Not a problem with that idea as it would have happened anyway. But surely if we want to invite a larger army to destroy we should have the proper numbers to handle it. Clearly we do not as terrorist attacks are as strong as ever. Bottom line is results are what counts. I've given Rummy as much rope as I can personally handle. But thus far his strategy has been a failure. There is good news and good things happening in Iraq, no doubt. And we will ultimately win. But the loss of life could have been reduced significantly with a more qualified Sec. of Def. That is a fact. Terror attacks have been dwindling over the last several months. They did spike right after the election as the terrorists began to get more desperate, but the number of attacks have gone down. The attacks have been getting deadlier because they're going after softer targets like civilians and because they're getting deadlier weapons. A single IED before was never able to kill 14 Marines but they've been getting these weapons from Iran and other places in the Middle East. Fox News documented that those recent IED's came from Hamas.

The fundamental question I have for you is where would all these overwhelming number of troops come from? We're already overtaxing our military. We no longer have the troops we had under the first Gulf War. We dance with what brung us.

You brought up a point earlier about Turkey. Turkey did deny us a northern front and cost us the use of the 4th Infantry Division. We left the 4th Division on ships near Turkey for too long. By the time we determined they wouldn't let us use their territory, it was too late to bring the 4th Division into the fight. Getting them into position would have delayed things for quite a long time.

[MunnyBaggs]

Well, Roger, I think we've just about covered all bases. Everyone is free to believe as they choose with whatever information they read and digest. I am a reading, radio, tv news, web junkie when it comes to this war on terror. Trust me I've heard, seen, and read just about every angle and opinion of it. I disagree with you that the attacks have dropped. The ORielly Factor last night said last year around this time we were averaging 45 attacks per day. Now we are up to 70 per day. Suffice to say Iraq has no chance of succeeding until that number is severely curtailed. I believe they will win but numbers would make it much easier. My suspicion is that we are already ramping troops in on the sly. I just wish they were more upfront about mistakes because no plan is perfect. My beef is how far from perfect this plan was. BTW I believe sometimes we as commentators need to swallow some tough medicine. I HATE going to this website, but feel in order to have the full view of things I have to go there semi-often: http://icasualties.org/oif/ As you can see halfway through this month we are on pace for one of the worst months casualty wise. Please pray for our young soldiers and pray they can win the day and come home.

[MunnyBaggs]

BTW on the answer to where those troops could have come from is easy. We have troops stationed in areas that don't even need them. We could run those bases (such as Germany and other Eastern Europe/Asian/etc areas) with smaller skeleton crews. Yes we are strained but we have thousands of troops in areas we probably should have drawn down years ago. But one way to ease that strain would have been a hard hitting shock and awe of our enemy. It started out that way but I guess Rummy decided Shock and Yawn is better.

[RogerL]

Well, Roger, I think we've just about covered all bases. Everyone is free to believe as they choose with whatever information they read and digest. I am a reading, radio, tv news, web junkie when it comes to this war on terror. Trust me I've read just about every angle and opinion of it. I disagree with you that the attacks have dropped. The ORielly Factor last night said last year around this time we were averaging 45 attacks per day. Now we are up to 70 per day. Suffice to say Iraq has no chance of succeeding until that number is severely curtailed. I believe they will win but numbers would make it much easier. My suspicion is that we are already ramping troops in on the sly. I just wish they were more upfront about mistakes because no plan is perfect. My beef is how far from perfect this plan was. BTW I believe sometimes we as commentators need to swallow some tough medicine. I HATE going to this website, but feel in order to have the full view of things I have to go there semi-often: http://icasualties.org/oif/ As you can see halfway through this month we are on pace for one of the worst months casualty wise. Please pray for our young soldiers and pray they can win the day and come home. Interesting that O'Reilly said that. Brit Hume's show had a report a couple weeks ago showing a steady decline in attacks from the month after the elections. They showed a spike at the beginning followed by steady drops all the way through this month. So what Brit Hume says contradicts what Bill O'Reilly says. I'll see if I can dig up the report somewhere.

BTW, what good would admitting mistakes do? It's a feel good thing only that gets you nothing but more attacks in the press and even lower poll ratings. I couldn't care less if they never admit a mistake. Ulysses S. Grant admitted after the Civil War that he made only one mistake, but didn't admit it during the war. That was the frontal assault at Cold Harbor which cost him 12,000 men in 15 minutes (you think 1,800 in 2 1/2 years is a lot, that was nothing compared to the casualties during the Civil War like the 51,112 casualties during three days of Gettysburg to put things in perspective). Nobody thinks less of him as a general, though.

Here's a couple of other rather horrifying statistics that puts further perspective on what we're facing in Iraq. A single D-Day training accident cost over 2,000 dead. A fire aboard a riverboat carrying Union soldiers home after the Civil War cost us over 5,000 dead. These are all single incidences. Every single year, over 2,000 die in the military from accidents even during peacetime. While 1,800 dead is very painful, in the scope of war, we've been very lucky our losses have been so light. For that, I thank Secretary Rumsfeld and our generals.

Nice debating you, Munny. I always enjoy these, especially when they're personal attack-free. :)

[MD-11CAPTAIN]

You seem to be a very smart man on everything. Especially able to help to lower some wording for lower education posters by interprete from high wordings-readings! :D (THANK YOU!!! THE SAME WITH LAURAD AND SARAD!)

As you know that our troops massed at around 130,000 personnels for around 2 1/2 years. I questions why can't U.S. send more personnels AFTER Iraq recognize (like now) that we are not there to occupation Iraq. I think in range of 250,000-300,000 would be powerful to do all the jobs to ultimately end insurgents much faster than as of current numbers of personnels. Why?

At 250,000-300,000 personnels can handle "whole" job at once. Like seal up the border between Syria/Iraq and Iraq/Iran to block any more insurgents sneaking in. Able to train Iraq's military, Able to be "at the service" whenever there is insurgents attacking on certain spots, and etc..... That would end bit faster than what we are going thru now. IMO


As it seem that cost is the big factor why Rummy have to be conserve? But look at him, He is really fruastation now!?

[Good_Karma]

Simple. Any Secratary of Defense with our military brains and firepower could have and would have done near identical invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We were highly successful until we reached Baghdad. To be fair one part of the Iraq invasion was not the fault of Mr. Rumsfeld as Turkey did not allow us a Northern front. That would have made a HUGE difference. By limiting us to a Kuwaiti front only, many of the Saddam loyalists in the north merely melted right back into the population with iron rule in some places. Had we that northern front more of them would have been on the front lines and been killed off. Having said that Rummy should have compensated by injecting far more troops into the battle. By not clamping down hard and heavy Rummy allowed anarchy and looting during the first days of the liberation. We lost control of many weapons dumps which "insurgents" raided freely stockpiling their murder weapons and stashing them. Only a couple of months ago did we find huge stockpiles even a couple RIGHT IN BAGHDAD. A bigger force would have found those earlier. Another problem is what some of the commanders say is a loss of control. Our divisions would gain control of one region and because of lack of manpower would have to abandon it for another. Guess what, those abandoned regions sprouted terrorists anew. I won't even go into the slow arming of our troops (or the fact that many of them have to BUY THEIR OWN PROTECTIVE GEAR!!!!). Sufface to say I love the idea of a smaller hard hitting rapid response army. But Iraq was not the place to try this experiment.

Hindsight is 20/20. Shoulda, woulda, coulda won't change a damn thing.

[ALIBABBA]

MB, you are way off base here. There is a sensitive report that is produced daily, I am on the distro for this report and read it daily. It highlights all attacks, all thwarted attacks where, when and how and a comparison of the previous years numbers to date. The numbers are going down, except for an occasional spike April 04/August 04 the numbers are decreasing. This is a fact not media spin. As far as up armour on vehicles, this is the first war that we have ever had it available and it was not available at the beginning of the war. We fought WW2 in jeeps not a lot of protection there! There is a complete body suite made of ballistic material in the chain and will be released in the future. The day this is released the media will be harping "why don't all the troops have it" and there we will go again with the left spin.

[RogerL]

You seem to be a very smart man on everything. Especially able to help to lower some wording for lower education posters by interprete from high wordings-readings! :D (THANK YOU!!! THE SAME WITH LAURAD AND SARAD!)

As you know that our troops massed at around 130,000 personnels for around 2 1/2 years. I questions why can't U.S. send more personnels AFTER Iraq recognize (like now) that we are not there to occupation Iraq. I think in range of 250,000-300,000 would be powerful to do all the jobs to ultimately end insurgents much faster than as of current numbers of personnels. Why?

At 250,000-300,000 personnels can handle "whole" job at once. Like seal up the border between Syria/Iraq and Iraq/Iran to block any more insurgents sneaking in. Able to train Iraq's military, Able to be "at the service" whenever there is insurgents attacking on certain spots, and etc..... That would end bit faster than what we are going thru now. IMO


As it seem that cost is the big factor why Rummy have to be conserve? But look at him, He is really fruastation now!? I wonder where we would get the troops to maintain 250,000-300,000 soldiers inside Iraq. At troop levels of 138,000, we're stretched thin, so I feel it isn't a matter of financial cost, but rather one of human cost. Soldiers in the Army are on their second tour of duty while some in the Marines are on their third deployment (Marines have shorter deployments). The National Guard and reserves make up nearly 40% of our total there now, tapping into forces never meant for long-term deployment. I doubt we could maintain that many soldiers without significantly degrading our morale and stamina. For a short time, we could have 300,000, maybe more. But for tours of one year or more, I doubt we could.

Unfortunately American soldiers draw the most dangerous duty as the other 28 allies are primarily stationed in the safe areas of Iraq while US forces primarily reside within the Sunni triangle where almost all the violence is located. That extracts a heavy mental toll as well as a physical toll.

As it is, the Pentagon is already tapping into troops stationed in Germany and South Korea and who knows how many other internationally-deployed divisions. Without a draft, I think we're already at our limits. Fifteen years ago before our military was gutted, we were able to maintain 500,000 troops in the sands of Saudi Arabia as well as airlifting equipment and supplies for that many. Nowadays, our lift capacity is reduced and the number of soldiers in uniform is significantly less as well. With branches of the military having difficulty meeting recruiting quotas, it's hard to say that we could duplicate those numbers today.

[Roger]

Well, Roger, I think we've just about covered all bases. Everyone is free to believe as they choose with whatever information they read and digest. I am a reading, radio, tv news, web junkie when it comes to this war on terror. Trust me I've heard, seen, and read just about every angle and opinion of it. I disagree with you that the attacks have dropped. The ORielly Factor last night said last year around this time we were averaging 45 attacks per day. Now we are up to 70 per day. Suffice to say Iraq has no chance of succeeding until that number is severely curtailed. I believe they will win but numbers would make it much easier. My suspicion is that we are already ramping troops in on the sly. I just wish they were more upfront about mistakes because no plan is perfect. My beef is how far from perfect this plan was. BTW I believe sometimes we as commentators need to swallow some tough medicine. I HATE going to this website, but feel in order to have the full view of things I have to go there semi-often: http://icasualties.org/oif/ As you can see halfway through this month we are on pace for one of the worst months casualty wise. Please pray for our young soldiers and pray they can win the day and come home.
Have you seen it "first hand" cause I have? :confused:

[dinar4me2]

While 1,800 dead is very painful, in the scope of war, we've been very lucky our losses have been so light. ...

Nice debating you, Munny. I always enjoy these, especially when they're personal attack-free. :)

Nice friendly debate, guys. One thing I would ask is how many of the 1,800 were killed in accidents in-country? Quite a few, unfortunately.

[RogerL]

Nice friendly debate, guys. One thing I would ask is how many of the 1,800 were killed in accidents in-country? Quite a few, unfortunately.
I recall seeing the number killed by accidents to be somewhere around 22%, or roughly 400+. That's a very high percentage of deaths due to accidents.

As I mentioned above, over 2,000 soldiers die in accidents each year. It's a very dangerous job even if nobody's shooting at you or planting bombs in your path.

[Bill in Dc]

your points are well considered and articulately presented ... i believe, however we must agree to disagree about how the war was prosecuted ... the scholarship is overwhelming and supports colin powell's now oft-cited assertion "you break it you, own it" ... note to all: i am military, my father was military, but i've also studied both strategy and post-conflict reconstruction ... no, i've virtually lived the latter ... i am no fan of dep state but i think they had a better idea of what was required post-conflict ... be this all as it may: iraq will work ... but to my dying day i believe it could have been done more smartly ...

regards,

bill

[MunnyBaggs]

Hindsight is 20/20. Shoulda, woulda, coulda won't change a damn thing.

Yep and that's the shame of the whole thing.

[MunnyBaggs]

MB, you are way off base here. There is a sensitive report that is produced daily, I am on the distro for this report and read it daily. It highlights all attacks, all thwarted attacks where, when and how and a comparison of the previous years numbers to date. The numbers are going down, except for an occasional spike April 04/August 04 the numbers are decreasing. This is a fact not media spin. As far as up armour on vehicles, this is the first war that we have ever had it available and it was not available at the beginning of the war. We fought WW2 in jeeps not a lot of protection there! There is a complete body suite made of ballistic material in the chain and will be released in the future. The day this is released the media will be harping "why don't all the troops have it" and there we will go again with the left spin.

All I can go by is the facts available to me. Right now our casualty rates in August are sky high could be the worst in 6 months. How that equates to less attacks is beyond my ability.

[MunnyBaggs]

Have you seen it "first hand" cause I have? :confused:

I have only seen it second hand and in a "sanitized" manner. I pray for your fallen brothers in arms and can only meagerly offer you and they the honor of True American Heros.

[BIG WAVE]

WHY????
Interesting. :confused:
Romania, Iraq agree on debt cancellation
Thursday, August 18, 2005 9:31:04 PM EST
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=CqWqhWeidCM9Tyw5Pys1PCMf XzgvID

BAGHDAD, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Romania has agreed to cancel 80 percent of its claims against Iraq, debt totaling $2 billion, the two countries announced Thursday. :happy64:

The cancellation is equivalent to the agreement in 2004 between Iraq and its largest debtors, the countries in the Paris Club. Romania is the first country outside the club to make such an agreement.

The agreement has three phases. In the first, $760 million in debt will be canceled immediately. The second phase becomes effective when Iraq signs a formal stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund, and the third installment is to be canceled on completion of a stand-by arrangement in 2008.

The remaining $500 million in debt is payable over 23 years

[MunnyBaggs]

your points are well considered and articulately presented ... i believe, however we must agree to disagree about how the war was prosecuted ... the scholarship is overwhelming and supports colin powell's now oft-cited assertion "you break it you, own it" ... note to all: i am military, my father was military, but i've also studied both strategy and post-conflict reconstruction ... no, i've virtually lived the latter ... i am no fan of dep state but i think they had a better idea of what was required post-conflict ... be this all as it may: iraq will work ... but to my dying day i believe it could have been done more smartly ...

regards,

bill

Thanks for your response, Bill. I've heard many a military mind agree with you. There are two points of view to this issue and we as a Democratic society should freely state them. I feel the issue was very well covered here and can now only leave this as a very civil discourse on the subject. Those reading can deduce for themselves which view they objectively support or a hybrid of the two polor opposite viewpoints. If someone has something truly unique to add, go for it. But at this point the arguement may become circular and redundant. Suffice to say we all support our heros with utmost admiration and pray for a swift end to this battle with their safe journey home.

[BIG WAVE]

WHY????
Interesting. :confused:
Romania, Iraq agree on debt cancellation
Thursday, August 18, 2005 9:31:04 PM EST
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=CqWqhWeidCM9Tyw5Pys1PCMf XzgvID

BAGHDAD, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Romania has agreed to cancel 80 percent of its claims against Iraq, debt totaling $2 billion, the two countries announced Thursday. :happy64:

The cancellation is equivalent to the agreement in 2004 between Iraq and its largest debtors, the countries in the Paris Club. Romania is the first country outside the club to make such an agreement.

The agreement has three phases. In the first, $760 million in debt will be canceled immediately. The second phase becomes effective when Iraq signs a formal stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund, and the third installment is to be canceled on completion of a stand-by arrangement in 2008.

The remaining $500 million in debt is payable over 23 years

LESS DEBT HIGHER PEG :happy64:

[BIG WAVE]

The agreement has three phases. In the first, $760 million in debt will be canceled immediately. The second phase becomes effective when Iraq signs a formal stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund, and the third installment is to be canceled on completion of a stand-by arrangement in 2008.

[RogerL]

All I can go by is the facts available to me. Right now our casualty rates in August are sky high could be the worst in 6 months. How that equates to less attacks is beyond my ability.
Quite easily since not all attacks have the same results. This was the month that two attacks tragically killed twenty men from the same Ohio unit. Take away those two attacks and casualty rates for this month don't differ much from any other month. It only takes one big attack to cause a lot of casualties. Most attacks result in no loss of life. If every attack were successful, we'd be losing far more than we are. If you count the cumulative total of attacks each month, they've been steadily declining.