Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: lord dolf vader on March 30, 2003, 12:02:48 PM
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48265-2003Mar29.html
wow
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sorry text
Reuters
Saturday, March 29, 2003; 5:33 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, 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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bogus. denied by Franks, Rummy the Dummy and the Pentagon.
seems to me the wars going just fine.
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wars should be run by the military, i don't like civilians running wars, remindes me of the LBJ/MacNamara screw up in nam.
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The politics of war are just as fascinating as the war itself.
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franks did two nam tours. highly respected by his men. he's no remf. if rummy the dummy trys to screwover the war effort, tommy will retarget a tomahawk.
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if there are any left after rummy hits all the tv station/markets in the middle east.
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Let's get 'em ;-)
Regards Blitz
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Originally posted by lord dolf vader
if there are any left after rummy hits all the tv station/markets in the middle east.
18 times each...
I hope they're bombing some valid targets over there... 2 bombs and 40 missles on one target seem like a little bit of overkill to me.
I dunno why they arent running ATG sorties 24 hours a day against RG units.
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Hey, Towd.. did Rummy buy the cruise missiles you told us cost $5 million each?
Or did he buy the ones that currently cost $500,000 each according to FAS?
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the newest generation they have yet to in service ?
or the ones they are using at 1.8 a piece
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Washington Post is to the left what Weekly Standard is to the right, no wonder you enjoy it so much LDV.
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As usuall, a poorly informed person posts some poor information from a poor news source (read..RAG).
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shesh it came from fark.com
still pissed about watergate or what ?
washingtonpost has ended more than a few republican crooks careers no ?
shure that has nothing to do with it tho :).
and reuters aint a paper its a wire service, as such the story will be in hundreds of tv stations and local papers tommorow. not like its the nation or anything lol.
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The post is the 5th largest paper in the US... Rummy and the boys in the Whitehouse ALL have subscriptions to it as it is THE Washington "rag".... no matter how much anyone tries to marginalize so called leftist liberal media.
But no... the story that Rumsfeld is tinkering with war strategy is such a whacko crazy idea that only the communist papers would suggest such a thing. :)
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heretics!
burn them!!
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Err..Nash? Did you say something?
bounce.. jiggle.. bounce.. jiggle.. bounce.. jiggle…
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Originally posted by Nash
The post is the 5th largest paper in the US... Rummy and the boys in the Whitehouse ALL have subscriptions to it as it is THE Washington "rag".... no matter how much anyone tries to marginalize so called leftist liberal media.
I've posted it in another thread about the Washington Post article, but I'll post it here again since it goes to the heart of what you're saying -- that Washington elites read the Washington Post.
Here it is:
Politicians and bureaucrats routinely take potshots at one another through newspapers. It's not unusual to see entire dialogues develop through background interviews and front page trashings of a person or a policy.
Remember the whole Crusader thing? Lots and lots of background interviews given by military personnel that painted Rumsfeld as dictatorial and incompetent... and lots and lots of Defense department background interviews painting the military as inefficient, defiant of proper authorities, and out of touch with modern military realities.
In other words, this article looks like someone who was routinely smacked down by Rumsfeld crying to the press on background. I expect we'll have a retort on background from the Defense department soon trashing those who just did the trashing. And so it goes. As always, the truth is probably somewhere inbetween, but it's important to realize that no matter how unbiased the journalist or fair the reporting, sources often have agendas all their own.
-- Todd/Leviathn
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occam's razor says mayby its just news. not a giant conspiracy like watergate for instance.
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Dunno.We started this with half the men,no month long bombing effort first and now were invading an entire country.Tommy Franks is no idiot.He lost his leg below the Knee in 'Nam and swore he would keep the faith with his troops if he ever had the chance to do so.I think Dumbsfield is shineing on Bush and the rest of us by thinking that we were just gonna waltz in there with half the ability we had in the first incident we had with Iraq.They obviously werent ready for what they are getting into.:rolleyes:
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Yup - saw yer post in another thread DMF and thought it was great.
I think in this case there are several key players (including Rumsfeld) about which there's been a lot of print generated wrt their stances on bigger/smaller military and of what type. Also their speculation as to what would be needed to get the job done in Iraq. The story towd posted is pretty much parallel to what we've been hearing for months, so...
You may be right that it's driven by personal agendas, but the gist of the story can't simply be dismissed because of the source or the political infighting that preceded it.
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seems like we've had more than enough force to handle the opposition.
where, outside of the media, do you see a problem with performance of the military on the road to their objectives?
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I haven't seen anything myself... but then again I know squat about military strat. If there's been enough troops, why are they bringing in more? The behind the scenes doubt and bickering that's starting to emerge is a clue that something isn't going as hoped.
From my unlearned perspective the war is going just fine, the casualties have been super low... so... I don't know.
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so, essentialy, the rumor mill should be allowed to affect war planning.
;)
sit back; relax, and watch the talking heads sir up a shiite storm in their toilet bowls.
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The rumour mill isn't affecting the war planning... the rumour mill is discussing the war planning. :)
When you have a bunch of civilians interfering in war strat (like that other war), and there are military professionals starting to rant a bit... voila! ya've got an interesting story.
Some of these wannabe strategists were estimating 40 thousand troops would be enough.
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military professionals starting to rant a bit...
LOL.. thats what i find so dubious.. what professional military senior officer would rant to the media?
now, senior officer to senior officer debates would be intresting to listen to. ;)
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Why not?
Maybe "rant" was a poor choice of words.. but the guy quoted is a senior Pentagon planner and he's obviously pissed. He said Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners. And he said it to the media.
You think Pentagon folks don't talk to the press? You think Hersh (who won a Pulitzer Prize and has been a writer for the Post and New York Times since before breaking the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam) sat down at his computer over the weekend and was inspired to dream up this story at the instistance of his imaginary friend?
Geeze.... :)
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be nice to start organizing some reliable Shiites in the south to help with some of the grunt work down there (as soon as they can sneak out of Basra without getting shot by Saddams people that is)
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say Nash, is the girl in the background the little sister of the bigger girl in the foreground :)
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come to think of it, the 40,000 armed Kurds are pretty tough, wonder how much bad political fallout if some brought down to help on the southern front?