Military Experts: The War is Lost!

[Nbadan]

Military experts say they see no exit from the Iraq debacle -- and that the war is helping al-Qaida.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/09/16/iraq_war/cover.jpg

"Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how we are "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.

But according to the U.S. military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost.


Retired Gen. William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse -- he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He added: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving [Osama] bin Laden's ends."

Retired Gen. Joseph Hoare, the former Marine commandant and head of the U.S. Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."

"I see no ray of light on the horizon at all," said Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College. "The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after World War II in Germany and Japan."

"I don't think that you can kill the insurgency," said W. Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, the top expert on Iraq there. According to Terrill, the anti-U.S. insurgency, centered in the Sunni triangle, and holding several key cities and towns, including Fallujah, is expanding and becoming more capable as a direct consequence of U.S. policy. "We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are X number of insurgents and when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the U.S. presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

After the killing of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah, the U.S. Marines besieged the city for three weeks in April -- the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said Gen. Hoare. "I asked a three-star Marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base, al-Qaida ("base" in Arabic) indeed.

"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power, it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents."

"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamization. The idea we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."

"This is far graver than Vietnam," said Gen. Odom. "There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with a war that was not constructive for U.S. aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

Terrill believes that any sustained U.S. military offensive against the no-go areas of the Sunni triangle "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign." Thus an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."

Gen. Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it -- after the election. The signs are all there." He compares any such planned attack with late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "U.S. military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase 'collateral damage.' And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."

Gen. Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and senior military officers over Iraq is worse than any he has ever seen with any previous U.S. government, including during Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."

Salon (http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/09/16/iraq_war/index.html)

[Nbadan]

journalist who was embedded with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah explains how the Bush White House lost the key battle of the Iraq war.

By David J. Morris

On Sunday, at his change-of-command ceremony, the outgoing top Marine general in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway, gave tragic voice to what thousands of servicemen throughout Iraq have believed for months. He announced that the April assault on Fallujah had been an overly aggressive mistake and that the often-vacillating American approach to the town had undermined U.S. efforts to win the hearts and minds of local Iraqis.

I arrived in western Iraq shortly after the siege of the town was called off, and whenever the subject came up, young Marine officers -- men with crew cuts in the duty-honor-country mold who evince an almost pathological optimism about all things Iraq -- would look away wistfully or just shake their heads in disgust. Many of the Marines involved in the attack would have preferred to complete the assault once it started, despite the likely huge increase in civilian casualties. Those who fought on the ground have complained about the timing, intent and restrictive rules of engagement of the White House-ordered assault.

Responding to the killing and subsequent mutilation of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah on March 31, Conway had led a 5,000-man Marine force that laid siege to the restive town for over three weeks. Bad press and reports of civilian casualties by Al-Jazeera later caused the Marines to halt their advance into the heart of the city and, on the eve of a renewed offensive, the Marines unexpectedly turned over the town to a local militia force that later became known as the Fallujah Brigade.

(snip)

The mainstream press has largely overlooked the fact that in the case of Fallujah, the White House unnecessarily injected itself into the military's tactical decision-making process in Iraq, ignored the informed opinions of ground commanders, and in effect micromanaged the battle. According to many observers, the seemingly contradictory U.S. military actions over the course of the siege were largely the result of the wishy-washy directives being issued by the Bush administration and its failure to appreciate the implications of sending in a large Marine force to seize a notoriously hostile town.

more…

Salon (http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/16/fallujah/index.html)

"Wishy-Washy directives being issued by the * administration" - damning, just damning. :shock

[Nbadan]

...and finally, a well written blog by a Baghdad blogger named Riverbend...


August was a hellish month. The heat was incredible. No one remembers Baghdad ever being quite this hot- I think we broke a new record somewhere in mid-August.

The last few days, Baghdad has been echoing with explosions. We woke up to several loud blasts a few days ago. The sound has become all too common. It’s like the heat, the flies, the carcasses of buildings, the broken streets and the haphazard walls coming up out of nowhere all over the city… it has become a part of life. We were sleeping on the roof around three days ago, but I had stumbled back indoors at around 5 am when the electricity returned and was asleep under the cool air of an air-conditioner when the first explosions rang out.

I tried futilely to cling to the last fragments of a fading dream and go back to sleep when several more explosions followed. Upon getting downstairs, I found E. flipping through the news channels, trying to find out what was going on. “They aren’t nearly fast enough,” he shook his head with disgust. “We’re not going to know what’s happening until noon.”

But the news began coming in much sooner. There were clashes between armed Iraqis and the Americans on Haifa Street- a burned out hummer, some celebrating crowds, missiles from helicopters, a journalist dead, dozens of Iraqis wounded, and several others dead. The road leading to the airport has seen some action these last few days- more attacks on troops and also some attacks on Iraqi guard. The people in the areas surrounding the airport claim that no one got any sleep the whole night.

The areas outside of Baghdad aren’t much better off. The south is still seeing clashes between the Sadir militia and troops. Areas to the north of Baghdad are being bombed and attacked daily. Ramadi was very recently under attack and they say that they aren’t allowing the wounded out of the city. Tel Affar in the north of the country is under siege and Falloojeh is still being bombed.

Everyone is simply tired in Baghdad. We’ve become one of those places you read about in the news and shake your head thinking, “What’s this world coming to?” Kidnappings. Bombings. Armed militias. Extremists. Drugs. Gangs. Robberies. You name it, and we can probably tell you several interesting stories.

So how did I spend my 9/11? I watched Michael Moore’s movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. I’ve had bootleg CD version since early August. (Grave apologies to Michael Moore- but there’s no other way we can see it here…) The copy has been sitting in a drawer with a bunch of other CDs. One of my cousins brought it over one day and said that while it was brilliant, it was also quite depressing and distressing all at once. I had been avoiding it because, quite frankly, I cannot stand to see Bush for five minutes straight- I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with almost two hours.

Three days ago, I took it out while the house was relatively quiet- no cousins, no cousins’ children, parents busy watching something or another, and E. asleep in front of the air conditioner for the next three hours.

The CD was surprisingly clear. I had expected some fuzziness and bad sound quality- it was fine. Someone had made the copy inside a movie theater. I could tell because in the background, there was a ringing mobile phone a couple of times and some annoying person in the front kept getting up to adjust his seat.

I was caught up in the film from the first moment, until the very last. There were moments, while watching, when I could barely breathe. I wasn’t surprised with anything- there was nothing that shocked me- all of the stuff about the Bush family and their Saudi friends was old news. It was the other stuff that had an impact- seeing the reactions of Americans to the war, seeing the troops in Iraq being interviewed, seeing that American mother before and after she lost her son in Iraq.

Ah, that mother. How she made me angry in the beginning. I couldn’t stand to see her on screen- convincing the world that joining the army was the ideal thing to do- perfectly happy that her daughter and son were ‘serving’ America- nay, serving, in fact, the world by joining up. I hated her even more as they showed the Iraqi victims- the burning buildings, the explosions, the corpses- the dead and the dying. I wanted to hate her throughout the whole film because she embodied the arrogance and ignorance of the people who supported the war.

I can’t explain the feelings I had towards her. I pitied her because, apparently, she knew very little about what she was sending her kids into. I was angry with her because she really didn’t want to know what she was sending her children to do. In the end, all of those feelings crumbled away as she read the last letter from her deceased son. I began feeling a sympathy I really didn’t want to feel, and as she was walking in the streets of Washington, looking at the protestors and crying, it struck me that the Americans around her would never understand her anguish. The irony of the situation is that the one place in the world she would ever find empathy was Iraq. We understand. We know what it’s like to lose family and friends to war- to know that their final moments weren’t peaceful ones… that they probably died thirsty and in pain… that they weren’t surrounded by loved ones while taking their final breath.

When she asked why her son had been taken and that he had been a good person… why did this have to happen to him? I kept wondering if she ever gave a second thought to the Iraqi victims and whether it ever occurred to her that Iraqi parents perhaps have the same thoughts as the try to dig their children out from under the rubble of fallen homes in Falloojeh, or as they attempt to stop the blood flowing out of a gaping hole in the chest of a child in Karbala.

The flashes of the bombing of Iraq and the victims were more painful than I thought they would be. We lived through it, but seeing it on a screen is still a torment. I thought that this last year and a half had somehow made me a little bit tougher when it came to seeing Iraq being torn apart by bombs and watching foreign troops destroy the country- but the wound is still as raw as ever. Watching those scenes was like poking at a gash with sharp stick- it hurt.

All in all, the film was… what is the right word for it? Great? Amazing? Fantastic? No. It made me furious, it made me sad and I cried more than I’d like to admit… but it was brilliant. The words he used to narrate were simple and to the point. I wish everyone could see the film. I know I'll be getting dozens of emails from enraged Americans telling me that so-and-so statement was exaggerated, etc. But it really doesn't matter to me. What matters is the underlying message of the film- things aren't better for Americans now than they were in 2001, and they certainly aren't better for Iraqis.

Three years ago, Iraq wasn't a threat to America. Today it is. Since March 2003, over 1000 Americans have died inside of Iraq... and the number is rising. In twenty years time, upon looking back, how do Americans think Iraqis are going to remember this occupation?

I constantly wonder, three years after 9/11, do Americans feel safer? When it first happened, there was a sort of collective shock in Iraq. In 2002, there was a sort of pity and understanding- we’ve been through the same. Americans could hardly believe what had happened, but the American government brings this sort of grief upon nations annually… suddenly the war wasn’t thousands of kilometers away, it was home.

How do we feel about it this year? A little bit tired.

We have 9/11’s on a monthly basis. Each and every Iraqi person who dies with a bullet, a missile, a grenade, under torture, accidentally- they all have families and friends and people who care. The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts as their worlds came down around them, too. I’ve attended more wakes and funerals this last year, than I’ve attended my whole life. The process of mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and automatic.

September 11… he sat there, reading the paper. As he reached out for the cup in front of him for a sip of tea, he could vaguely hear the sound of an airplane overhead. It was a bright, fresh day and there was much he had to do… but the world suddenly went black- a colossal explosion and then crushed bones under the weight of concrete and iron… screams rose up around him… men, women and children… shards of glass sought out tender, unprotected skin … he thought of his family and tried to rise, but something inside of him was broken… there was a rising heat and the pungent smell of burning flesh mingled sickeningly with the smoke and the dust… and suddenly it was blackness.

9/11/01? New York? World Trade Center?

No.

9/11/04. Falloojeh. An Iraqi home.

Riverbend Blog (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#109524578940 723400)

[Hook Dem]

Quit jacking off Dan! Like I said before.....why don't you try supporting your country for a change? You are Al-quada's best supporter! You dare call yourself "patriotic"?

[bigzak25]

war is hell, and war ain't perfect....you learn from mistakes and move on....a lost battle is not a lost war....

**** the people that have to be "won" over.....most of those are the ones that were living high on the hog with saddam in power and are now pissed.....

the formerly opressed iraqi's get it, i guarantee you, and hopefully, sooner than later, our role there will be "supportive" in nature only.

[ClintSquint]

The USA will win in the end!!

Let's kick their asses!!

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

The irony here is that the WH has to "micromanage" because the PC left would scream bloody murder if our troops handled it the right way (like they say we should be).

Liberals shouldn't be blaming Bush, they should be blaming themselves.

[Nbadan]

why don't you try supporting your country for a change?

:rolleyes

Back to the amateurish patriotic attacks. Hookdem, I thought you had grown beyond that already.

Just cause I don't support the war doesn't mean I don't support the troops. For instance, I wouldn't go before a Senate committee and testify about atrocities committed at Abu Gharib or what happened to all those 'shadow Iraq prisoners' we still can't find.

[Nbadan]

How many more troops will we lose before the November election? Who is gonna tell the relatives of the last soldier to die in Iraq that their son or daughter may have died in vein?


Instead, there are signs the Americans and their Iraqi allies are facing an enemy more determined than ever. Insurgents have learned from past mistakes and shifted strategy, co-operating more closely with each other and devising new ways to put their relatively simple arsenal to treacherous use.

Militants now follow up roadside bomb attacks with rocket-propelled grenades instead of fleeing, or fire mortar rounds to lure soldiers out of their base and into freshly laid mine fields.

In a July attack in Samarra, for example, militants detonated a car bomb and then hammered a military headquarters with a mortar barrage as troops fled the building. Five American soldiers died.

<snip>

Hours later, guerrillas used a car bomb to disable a U.S. patrol on a main Baghdad road before detonating a second car bomb that wrecked a Bradley fighting vehicle sent to assist the patrol. They then opened fire on the wounded crewmen as they fled the vehicle.

Link (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3503838)

[exstatic]

The idea we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier.

Nail, head, bang.

Oh, and Hook? Dan didn't really say anything, he just posted comments from our senior military. Go call them traitors.

[spurster]

Let's keep helping Iraqis by killing more of them!

Let's support our troops by putting and keeping them in more places like Iraq!

We are winning the war on terror!

[Tommy Duncan]

I agree. We should return to the fantasyland in which there are no crazy fuckers out there who want to attack this country in any way possible and don't mind killing themselves in the process.

[exstatic]

I agree. We should return to the fantasyland in which there are no crazy fuckers out there who want to attack this country in any way possible and don't mind killing themselves in the process.

You keep coming back to this, yet you say that Iraq wasn't invaded because of 9/11. Strange.

Do you think that the ultimate result of our meddling will put in a government any LESS hostile to the US than Saddam was? I'm talking about after we pull out in 10 years, and they behead everyone we put into power.

[Tommy Duncan]

Incorrect. I have said that the Iraq invasion was preemptive, not punitive.

[Nbadan]

preemptive, not punitive.

Preemptive against what? Saddam was cornered. He had not rebuilt his conventional forces. He had destroyed what was left of his WMD program after GW1, even though we never found any WMD in that war either. He didn't run Al-Queda training camps in areas under his control nor did he let any of the 911 conspirators enter and leave Bahgdad at will..

So please, tell me again, What did we Preempt?

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Of course, a cornered animal has never lashed out in fury before either...

[Tommy Duncan]

If you have to ask, danny.

[Yonivore]

Did they ask the military experts that are actually prosecuting this war?

[exstatic]

Did they ask the military experts that are actually prosecuting this war?

Being former military, I can vouch that on active duty, you are NOT free to say what you want.

[Yonivore]

"Being former military, I can vouch that on active duty, you are NOT free to say what you want."
Being a consumer of modern media pap, I can vouch that one can find a former military "expert" willing to say whatever the **** you want them to on the air.

[Hook Dem]

"Oh, and Hook? Dan didn't really say anything, he just posted comments from our senior military. Go call them traitors." ........So, what are you? Dan's fuckin bodyguard? Do you guys sleep together? Thought so!:lol

[exstatic]

Blah,blah, blah, Ha Ha Ha. Evasion of points and arguments. Useless namecalling[/Hookdem]

[Hook Dem]

blah, blah, blah....thats what you do best Exstatic!

[ChumpDumper]

The irony here is that the WH has to "micromanage" because the PC left would scream bloody murder if our troops handled it the right way (like they say we should be).Since when does the WH care what the left thinks or screams?

Are they scurred of the political consequences?

Losing votes?

It surely can't be lefty screams -- they aren't that cowardly, are they?

What would they do differently if they weren't scurred?