Centerfield

I think the people Bush has selected for his team are strategic type folks, rather than tactical. Powell is a supremely talented tactical guy, but the power has obviously been given to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and their ilk.

Very good points made, Heather.
In general, can only hope as Centrists-Moderates grow we will have the more qualified there, who will select the best to be there with them.

Partisan politics is a form of insanity. No reason the rest of us should be polite about it any longer.

And, want to see use of pool reporters too. There are far too many media types. (How much extra are we paying for goods & services, besides having to put up with them? This ties in to post just before this one, Bush Press Conference.

Lastly, I for one, don't want my military in 135+ countries. Let other countries fight their own battles
for their own countries. U.S. will assist with supplies and military consultancy. And, I want all citizens to serve 3-4 yrs. for National Guard Type Programs to defend this country.

Alex

Interesting article pointer.

I'm skeptical of Klein's bottom line. The US Government is pretty vast. It has all kinds of thinkers.

In fact, detail-oriented people ARE chasing bin Laden. Detail-oriented people ARE turning on the lights in Baghdad.

And Klein's problematic strategicians are scaring the daylights out of terrorists and spreading democracy and hope to a region that formerly lacked these things. Absolutely useless.

I think the tactical mistakes of the Bush team are many, and involve critical issues:

• Failure to prepare the nation for the sacrifices related to war. The various estimates top officials gave before the war were extremely optimistic.
• Failure to provide a security force big enough to restore order in Iraq. Which resulted in a policy of reducing patrols and focusing on protecting our soldiers rather than establishing order. Which, in turn, resulted in "losing" whole cities like Fallujah and Najaf with scarecely a battle being fought ... and then having to retake them.
• Announcing a timetable for transferring sovereignty and drawing down troops in the immediate aftermath of our first big troop losses in Iraq. This gave the worst sort of impression -- that we're not willing to sacrifice for the sake of completing our mission there.
• Failure to negotiate a political solution. Prior to the time the latest insurgency began, we seemed to be mostly treading water diplomatically, rather than working out the terms for an interim government with the more moderate clerics and community leaders.

I think the basic thesis of this article is true -- the Bush folks think strategically and believe the "big ideas" will solve problems. They fail to pay much attention to the on-the-ground tactical decisions that ultimately determine whether your big ideas work.

> I think the tactical mistakes of the Bush team are many, and involve critical issues:

Well, now we come back to the press, amongst whom many have staked out the opinion that these are real mistakes with decidedly scanty facts to back them up, IMHO.

> Failure to prepare the nation for the sacrifices related to war. The various estimates top officials gave before the war were extremely optimistic.

Well, I've certainly heard this said frequently. BUT it doesn't jive with my memory. I do remember exactly one instance of overoptimism - on the rate at whichs Iraqis would increasingly help with order and other civic duties.

> Which, in turn, resulted in "losing" whole cities like Fallujah and Najaf with scarecely a battle being fought ... and then having to retake them.
(doing this out of order, to set up the next bit)

Not because of troop insufficiencies. During the invasion, many cities were bypassed by Coalition forces, to be controlled later. That preserved hostile forces in those cities. On the other hand, back then the opposition forces outnumbered ours. Now, we outnumber theirs probably at least 10:1.

> Failure to provide a security force big enough to restore order in Iraq. Which resulted in a policy of reducing patrols

We are establishing order. The rebels and sunny-day Iraqi police and soldiers are, of course, making things bad in a few places just now, but rebel stock is a bad long-term investment. Increasing order and services on the ground are famously underreported. There might have been more order faster if there'd been more troops.

> ...and focusing on protecting our soldiers rather than establishing order.

The policy is to do both. To be sure, protecting Coalition troops is a high priority, because the death of many troops would have a worse effect on the occupation than widespread disorder or even rebellion.

> Announcing a timetable for transferring sovereignty and drawing down troops in the immediate aftermath of our first big troop
> losses in Iraq. This gave the worst sort of impression -- that we're not willing to sacrifice for the sake of completing our
> mission there.

The schedule was in place before April. The proposed drawdown was fairly incremental - 20% of the troops, ISTR. And I haven't noticed any consulting of moderate Iraqi opinion on the part of commentators who say that we left a bad impression. As Bush said in the press conference, the Iraqi people are glad we got rid of Saddam, but also widely unhappy about being occupied. That rang true to me from reading Iraqi blogs. (gotta admit to being too busy to consult the Iraqi blogs recently).

> Failure to negotiate a political solution. Prior to the time the latest insurgency began, we seemed to be mostly treading water diplomatically, rather
> than working out the terms for an interim government with the more moderate clerics and community leaders.

There's lots of evidence that the Coalition has been jawboning with Iraqi leaders of all sizes and shapes since before Saddam fell. The Coalition didn't HAVE to listento Sistani... This is another an undercovered topic.

>>I think the tactical mistakes of the Bush team are many, and involve critical issues:

Well, now we come back to the press, amongst whom many have staked out the opinion that these are real mistakes with decidedly scanty facts to back them up, IMHO.

>>Failure to prepare the nation for the sacrifices related to war. The various estimates top officials gave before the war were extremely optimistic.

Well, I've certainly heard this said frequently. BUT it doesn't jive with my memory. I do remember exactly one instance of overoptimism - on the rate at whichs Iraqis would increasingly help with order and other civic duties.

Look at the contrast between the first Gulf War and the second. Leading officials in the elder Bush administration were sent before Congress to give estimates of the likely costs of the war. They covered worst-case scenarios, and some offered estimates that we might lose 10,000 soldiers in the war.

It is the responsibility of an administration that wants to go to war to estimate the sacrifices involved and to offer that information to the people during the debate about the war. That way, when our representatives vote to give him war authority we have fully-informed national support for the war. Bush Sr. did it. Bush Jr. did not.

Let's look at what they did do:

• Paul Wolfowitz testified before Congress and said, regarding the occupation force, "we have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground." He added, though, that the estimates of Army Gen. Eric Shinseki were "wildly off the mark". We have "no idea", but it will be much lower than our Army chief thinks. The formula, here, is ignorance plus optimism.
  
• What else did Wolfowitz say that reflects his assessment of post-war needs? Well, he said Iraq would "greet us as liberators", would be much more easily occupied than Afghanistan because Iraq had "no ethnic divisions", and that the operative historical analogy was post-WWII France. Occupying Iraq would be like occupying France was after WWII.
  
• Wolfowitz also testified that Iraq's oil wealth would pay for most of the reconstruction costs.
  
• The Pentagon estimated they would be able to begin drawing down forces almost immediately after the combat phase of the war. They expected to be down to 30,000 troops by Autumn of 2003.
  
• V.P. Cheney gave loads of interviews -- responding to questions like those posed by Tim Russert on Meet the Press about whether the occupation would become "a long, costly and bloody battle" by saying: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators."

Next point:

>> Which, in turn, resulted in "losing" whole cities like Fallujah and Najaf with scarecely a battle being fought ... and then having to retake them.

Not because of troop insufficiencies. During the invasion, many cities were bypassed by Coalition forces, to be controlled later. That preserved hostile forces in those cities. On the other hand, back then the opposition forces outnumbered ours. Now, we outnumber theirs probably at least 10:1.

So you're saying that we never took Fallujah or Najaf? We occupied the country for a year without taking major cities? But it wasn't because of insufficient troops.

>> Announcing a timetable for transferring sovereignty and drawing down troops in the immediate aftermath of our first big troop losses in Iraq. This gave the worst sort of impression -- that we're not willing to sacrifice for the sake of completing our mission there.

The schedule was in place before April.

Yes, but our first big troop losses in Iraq were in November:

• They downed a Chinook helicopter near Fallujah on Nov. 2, killing 16 soldiers and wounding 21.
  
• A blackhawk was then shot down on Nov. 7 near Tikrit, killing 6 soldiers.
  
• Two helicopters collided Nov. 15 after one was hit with an RPG, killing 17 soldiers.
  
• On Nov. 12, the Italian military headquarters in Nasariya was bombed, killing 17 Italian soldiers.

What happened, in the midst of these first big losses?

• Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference Nov. 6 announcing a plan for drawing down forces over the subsequent 6 month period in Iraq.
  
• In mid-November, the President announced his plan to transfer sovereignty in Iraq by July 1, 2004.

It looked, to a lot of observers, like we were flinching under fire, signalling our preference to leave rather than accept signifiant casualties ... perhaps signalling our greater conern for politics in the coming presidential election year.

I think that's what it actually was. The president has a little too much Karl Rove in him.

I invite you to look at:
http://tomgrey.motime.com/1083000026#264950
where I discuss the real strategic need -- empowering Iraqi people to own their democratic destiny; without going through a mullocracy, first.

I don't think Bush is perfect, and think he should have provided more security, earlier; and even now should support more local city council elections. Tactical issues. But the main strategy has to be to get Iraqis willing to die, and kill, for their democratic future. The Islamofascists DO have such Iraqis, and other Arabs & Persians.