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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:27
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According to this week's New Yorker magazine, military officials are accusing Rumsfeld of incompetence in planning the campaign:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...usa_report_dc_2
quote:
Report: Rumseld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon (news - web sites) planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq (news - web sites), New Yorker Magazine reported.
In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.
"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."
It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.
"They've got no resources. He was so focused on proving his point -- that the Iraqis were going to fall apart," the article, by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as saying.
A spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the article.
Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship with the Army's upper echelons while he commands strong loyalty from U.S. special operations forces, a key component in the war.
He has insisted the invasion has made good progress since it was launched 10 days ago, with some ground troops 50 miles from the capital, despite unexpected guerrilla-style attacks on long supply lines from Kuwait.
Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.
Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said.
"The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the former official said.
The article quoted the senior planner as saying Rumsfeld had wanted to "do the war on the cheap" and believed that precision bombing would bring victory.
Some 125,000 U.S. and British troops are now in Iraq. U.S. officials on Thursday said they planned to bring in another 100,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of April.
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I predicted a while ago that, should the war not go off as an instant and spectacular success, Rumsfeld would be the fall guy. This would seem to be the beginning of that, perhaps, if the story is correct.
The bolded sections have made me begin to very seriously fear for the lives of our troops now.
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Zylka
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Someone told me to do a Google {snip by MtG} to gain insight into the current situation in Iraq
...boy was that a mistake
by MtG: Yes it was.
Last edited by MichaeltheGreat on 31-03-2003 at 03:49
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Zylka
reference removed by MtG
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*throws up after doing the search*
Last edited by MichaeltheGreat on 31-03-2003 at 03:52
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
Hrrrm, I don't think the intention is to decrease the oil price, but to increase it. They don't want the Iraqi oil as such, just to keep it away from the market so that the oil companies in Texas can gain more profit. After all, Bush and his friends would get richer if the oil price was kept at a permanent high level, right?
(BTW, my cousin's husband is an oil millionarie in Dallas. I haven't yet asked him what he thinks of all this. He might have some inside info  ) |
A few things about oil economics.
(a) Iraqi oil is mostly off the market anyway, due to sanctions. We'd have a lot more control of the market, less opposition on the ground, and a more direct link with the whole terrorism business if we splattered Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.
(b) There's more money in refining oil, and in field development for third parties, etc., than there is in actually pumping the **** out of the ground. Cheney's old firm, Halliburton, is an oilfield services company - they make their money from the hardware, etc. involved in producing crude. The well known traditional oil companies make the bulk of their money from refining it and distributing the products.
(c) High sustained prices tank the rest of the economy, and stimulate both conservation and reduced consuption. People in the oil business want the stuff to be used, not sit in the ground.
(d) Overall profit margins are better with relatively low, stable prices. Too low is neither good nor sustainable, as it drives marginal fields out of production once their incremental price per barrel produced gets to or near market levels. If the benchmark prices of Saudi intermediate crude pegged at around $22-24 a barrel and stayed there, we'd all be doing a tap dance.
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30-03-2003 04:03
Just nuke'm! 
It makes sense to wait for them, because of (1) and (2) above.
), and personnel by air. 4 ID's heavy equipment had been en route to Turkey since January, but it's personnel were still at Hood. Normal practice is you fly in the troops as their equipment is being offloaded and transfered via equipment transporters to their base camps, so the personnel can inventory the equipment and perform prep and maintenance work on it.
Iraq on the other hand...
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