From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Tue Oct 19 2004 - 19:57:49 PDT
Ryan,
>Well, I think people'd have been hard pressed to
>get FDR to admit any mistakes in his prosecution
>of the Second World War. Doing so could have
>given some good material for Hitler or Tojo to
>use in their political machines alone. Or some
>weak point to target.
But Bush won't admit to making any mistakes at all. In the Debates he
was asked point blank to name three things he felt he made a mistake on
since taking office. ANYTHING. He completely and utterly dodged the
question. One thing I will say for Bush, he is at least consistent. No
mistakes domestically or abroad.
>Steve, while not another 2/3s of troops, remember
>the 4th ID was cooling it's heels out in the
>harbors off the coast of Turkey while everyone
>else was going in. A mech Division coming in from
>the north vs the much smaller balance of Kurds
>and SF dudes would have made a serious difference
>I think.
If that is the case then perhaps Bush should have either waited for the
Turkish gov't to change its mind or had the 4th ID redeployed. His
father had the whole Coalition sit in the desert for weeks and weeks in
order to get the conditions right conditions. What was the big rush? A
few weeks certainly wouldn't have mattered.
>How much of the remaining ready reserve would
>have been required to provide the troop numbers
>that the Current AAR's are saying were needed to
>prevent the insurgent war from blooming? How many
>more NG and Reserve units would have required
>activation and how many would have been able to
>activate and train up to required levels in time?
So, if you go to a car dealer and ask how much a car is, and you don't
have enough money, do you pay him what you happen to have because that's
all you have and expect to drive the car away without complications?
>I don't ask simple questions do I?
No, and that is exactly why the Bush Admin ignored the Army and retired
its head when he gave the bad news that the war could not be done "on the
cheap".
>Mind you I'm keeping this strictly military
>tactics/strategy based as I'm hoping that's
>sufficiently OT for the list and those not
>wanting to discuss politics.
I'm trying to keep this strictly military as well. The Army was correct
that more troops were needed. Even those who say the war isn't going
terrible right now (as many claim) would be hard pressed to say things
wouldn't be a lot better now if we had more troops early on. No
substitute for boots on the ground.
Unfortunately the Army's troop request was not practical because it was
already stretched too thin with commitments all over the globe. They
said this in plain English and were ignored because it was not the
"correct" answer ("bzzzzt. I'm sorry, the answer we were looking for was
130,000, not 300,000 to 500,000. That's the end of the game for you.
Here's your retirement papers. Thanks for playing").
Many have been saying since the early 1990s that US commitments needed to
be scaled back so that we could respond to a sizable threat on our own
without waiting (as we had to do in Gulf War One). But that was not the
case in 2002. In Gulf War One the troop shortage was overcome by making
a much larger coalition where what the US lacked were made up for by
other nations. The ground war was even put on hold in order to retrain
several US National Guard and allied formations which were deemed not
ready for combat operations. Some tough negotiations and decisions were
made, including the one to not finish off Saddam. I think Bush Sr. (whom
I voted for) did it the right way. I just wish the apple fell much
closer to the tree.
Steve
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