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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Rumsfeld’s War, Powell’s Occupation |
| 2004-04-30 |
| EFL Rumsfeld wanted Iraqis in on the action — right from the beginning. The latest post-hoc conventional wisdom on Iraq is that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld won the war but lost the occupation. There are two problems with this analysis (which comes, most forcefully, from The Weekly Standard). First, it’s not Rumsfeld’s occupation; it’s Colin Powell’s and George Tenet’s. Second, although it’s painfully obvious that much is wrong with this occupation, it’s simple-minded to assume that more troops will fix it. More troops may be needed now, but more of the same will not do the job. Something different is needed — and was, right from the start. A Rumsfeld occupation would have been different, and still might be. Rumsfeld wanted to put an Iraqi face on everything at the outset — not just on the occupation of Iraq, but on its liberation too. That would have made a world of difference. Rumsfeld’s plan was to train and equip — and then transport to Iraq — some 10,000 Shia and Sunni freedom fighters led by Shia exile leader Ahmed Chalabi and his cohorts in the INC, the multi-ethnic anti-Saddam coalition he created. There, they would have joined with thousands of experienced Kurdish freedom fighters, ably led, politically and militarily, by Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani. Working with our special forces, this trio would have sprung into action at the start of the war, striking from the north, helping to drive Baathist thugs from power, and joining Coalition forces in the liberation of Baghdad. That would have put a proud, victorious, multi-ethnic Iraqi face on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and it would have given enormous prestige to three stubbornly independent and unashamedly pro-American Iraqi freedom fighters: Chalabi, Talabani, and Barzani. Jay Garner, the retired American general Rumsfeld chose to head the civilian administration of the new Iraq, planned to capitalize on that prestige immediately by appointing all three, along with six others, to head up Iraq’s new transitional government. He planned to cede power to them in a matter of weeks — not months or years — and was confident that they would work with him, not against him, because two of them already had. General Garner, after all, is the man who headed the successful humanitarian rescue mission that saved the Kurds in the disastrous aftermath of Gulf War I, after the State Department-CIA crowd and like thinkers in the first Bush administration betrayed them. Kurds are not a small minority — and they remember. The hero’s welcome they gave General Garner when he returned to Iraq last April made that crystal clear. Finally, Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to cut way down on the infiltration of Syrian and Iranian agents and their foreign terrorist recruits, not just by trying to catch them at the border — a losing game, given the length of those borders — but by pursuing them across the border into Syria to strike hard at both the terrorists and their Syrian sponsors, a move that would have forced Iran as well as Syria to reconsider the price of trying to sabotage the reconstruction of Iraq. snip |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #6 LH-- 1. Is the problem that there is near constant infighting in the admin or that one of the sides is wrong? I think it's the latter-- and that the wrong side is the DOS/CIA side. 2. Maybe Rice and Dubyah lack the stones or whatever to keep the DOS/CIA in line. But just as depressing, maybe they find their case convincing much of the time. After all, liberals are way smart folks-- just ask one!-- and the majority of them are not hawks.... Right? |
| Posted by: Wuzzalib 2004-04-30 6:51:57 PM |
| #5 I remember there were around 3,000 Iraqi-Americans getting trained in Hungary before we went in. One day I picked up the paper and read the program had been disbanded. Never saw why. Yes, LH. Infighting is nothing new. That's why the Prez has to lay down the law, shake up the cultures at CIA, State, and DOD, if necessary. It seems Rumsfeld has been doing that at DOD. Powell, on the other hand, has not done the same at State. I like the guy and he's talented, but I get the impression that 20 years of PC culture at State has calcified thinking-out-of-the box there. Tenet? Don't make me laugh. He said to the 9/11 committee that it would take 5 more years to get Humint up to snuff? I've said it before here: How the hell did Johnny Walker Lind, a Marin County doper, get all the way to Afghanistan as an AQ adherent just on Mommy's credit card? Johnny didn't need 5 years to get himself in place. So keep Rummy, get rid of Colin and George. Toss in Mueller, too. I read yesterday (NY Sun or City Journal, I think) one huge irony of post 9/11 is that Poindexter has been the only guy to get fired. Maybe the writer forgot Jay Garner. Anyway, the point is, there are too many folks walking around DC quite comfortable in the fact that a check is coming on pay day. W, I told you this time last year that Iraq was not to be a public works project. I think I also said we're not in this thing to be popular. In fact, we've never been popular in the 3rd world pages of Le Monde, Al Ahram Weekly, or the Arab News, even when Clinton was Prez. Victory is the only option. If you don't follow through to the end W, then I'll be mighty disappointed. Our guys and gals serving will be even more disappointed. The families of the dead and wounded will be let down. It's remarkable that families quoted in the Chicago Trib portraits of those cut down are 99% behind W. Why? Because their kids were. The tragedy would be to cut and run, or at least muddle things so much that we and the real Iraqi public lose the peace. Don't let these sacrifices be in vain. Don't let our enemies feel smug. Lincoln and Churchill went to the very end. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-04-30 5:18:14 PM |
| #4 If this is true, it confirms what Ive said before, that the problem in this administration has been the near CONSTANT infighting on the national security team. Look, its not the first time in history that a Sec of State and a SecDef have been at swords point. When you do, you either have a strong National Security Advisor (a la Kissinger) or a strong President (a la Reagan) to put things in order. It seems we have neither. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-04-30 4:06:17 PM |
| #3 It's all hindsite now, there is no way of knowing if the Iraqi force would have buckled rather than fight other IRaqi's (as so many did when the Fallujah bit started). |
| Posted by: Ruprecht 2004-04-30 3:56:50 PM |
| #2 Very interesting peice. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-04-30 3:40:01 PM |
| #1 Amen. No, makes that afuckingmen. Thank you Barbara Lener for writing this article - and thank you Sherry for posting it! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-04-30 2:19:37 PM |