I have seen a lot of people who initially supported the war in Iraq bend themselves into amazing contortions trying to square that with what has happened. I'm going to take a different approach. I was wrong. Nothing more, just wrong.
By way of explanation, not excuse, here are the details behind it:
- I believed, based on the various arguments floating around, that there were WMDs in Iraq. I didn't take what Bush said as gospel but the majority of those who should have had good intelligence on this, including the French, believe they existed. To me the big question was how far along were they. Turns out - nothing going on.
- I do think the initial fight to Baghdad was handled brilliantly. One of the better uses of military might in history (although not as good as Patton's race across France considering what each commander had to work with).
- But handling the "peace" (if you can call it that). This has to be one most incompetent military actions in the history of the human race. This is even worse than Vietnam because it was possible to win in Iraq while in Vietnam the best that could happen was to not lose.
- The Middle East has a history of only changing when a large outside force jars it in to action. I was hopeful that this would be a catalyst for a positive change.
I could argue that I figured Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield would never be this incompetent. I could argue that believing WMDs existed was a reasonable viewpoint. But all of that is irrelevant. We all make assumptions and educated guesses when reaching decisions on everything from what to order at lunch to what school to send our kids to.
And the bottom line is - I was wrong.
I also think this will go down in history as the most incompetently prosecuted war in the history of the U.S. With blame laid not just on Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield but also on most of the top brass at the pentagon. A lot of the troops in Iraq are doing an amazing job considering their resources and rules of engagement. But their top commanders almost without exception have not done their job well.
In the Civil War Lincoln fired general after general (McClellan twice) until he found the ones who would fight. In WWII King immediately replaced Stark and Nimitz was bounced up to head the Pacific fleet. In the army Eisenhower was a Colonel when Marshall promoted him up over every general in the army to command in North Africa and then Europe. And none of these men were shy about removing those that were not good enough. Even Fletcher, the "hero of Midway" was reassigned to do nothing when it was clear that he was not good enough.
How many top brass have been removed in the Iraq war? Zero.
What do you think? Please comment.
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