perfidy

We are in the process of rotating troops in Iraq. Right now, there are a lot of troops there, and I've heard rumors that some of the troops scheduled to leave, aren't going to.

Many people have commented on the paucity of boots on ground. I think Rumsfeld was right when he believed that we could win the war with a (relatively) minimal amount of troops. Witness our easy victory. However, occupation cannot depend on shock and awe, precision munitions and stealth fighters. A stealth fighter can't go into a house, look for weapons, or arrest a Baathist. A stealth fighter can't stand a post, or show the flag in a dark alley.

We do need more troops, both generally - more divisions - and in Iraq.

As for the other, those people aren't like VPs in a company, they are a little more entrenched, and have their bureacratic empires at their backs. No president is going to effect more than a temporary cooling of institutional rivalries. Especially between the FBI and CIA.

Under normal circumstances (like, say, not in the middle of a war on terror) this is a good thing. We want our government agencies fighting each other, because then they're not focusing on us. An all powerful intelligence agency is too dangerous in a republic. The division of responsibility between the F-entity and the C-entity was made on purpose.

The problem is balancing that with the needs of the war. And by and large, the reports that I have read indicate that the kids are sharing their toys much better than before 9/11. Not perfect, but then nothing man creates is perfect.

J,
The question is not "are there enough soldiers" (here referring to land combat forces). The question the public should ask, and that planners ask, is "What is the mission"? Everything else flows from the answer to that. Not that the answer is always correct, and indeed it rarely is at first.

I'm not convinced that Iraq needs more soldiers, but what it definitely needs is more and better HUMINT. In this sort of urban, highly volatile environment, credible human intelligence can be a huge force multiplier. In other words, if we know who specificlaly the bad guys are, and where to find them, you don't need more Army divisions, which are mostly composed of less capable support people anyway.

And there may very well be such an effort, about which we know very little if anything. It is certainly a positive step to replace some Army units with Marine units, which have a smaller support apparatus and more trigger pullers.

I was against the idea of the Marines playing touchy-feely peacekeepers, but now that they are determinedly (?) killing savages I feel they are where they are needed.

GL, good point - more HUMINT should be at the top of our wishlist. But more soldiers wouldn't hurt. (And by more divisions, I meant for the army as a whole, to relieve the problem of too-heavy deployment schedules. That wouldn't necessarily increase the number of troops in Iraq, but would mean that we can support the strain easier. Much of my fears about reenlistment seem to be misplaced, though. Almost everybody met targets - with the units that were recently deployed seeing some of the highest retention rates. That seems to indicate that the troops are behind the program, and want to remain part of it.)

It is a good thing that the Marines are doing what they do best. I can almost imagine some line animals parroting the sweetness and light doctrine, but smiling now that they don't have to bother anymore. (Along the lines of the joke, "screw the prime directive, set phasers to kill.")

GL, while you are dead on regarding HUMINT, I have to say that more troops-- support troops-- electricians, engineers-- wouldn't hurt. And more guns too. Blackwater do a great job, and they should considering who works for them, but it strikes me not at all funny that military security detail has been farmed out to private companies.

Second, there's the problem of overcommitment. We still need more troops in the army, not only to alleviate the personnel woes in Iraq that Buckethead alluded to, but also so we have enough people rested and ready at home in case North Korea, Syria, or someone else pulls something fatally stupid.

I heard a news report this morning that Bremer is not seen as a high probability choice for the new US Ambassador position in Iraq. Apparently he's tired, stressed out, and wants to come home.

I wonder how the troops feel about that.

I wrapped up Richard Clarke's book last night. In the closing chapters, he states that in his opinion, the single biggest mistake made in Iraq was the dissolution of the Army and the "De-Baathification" of government and industry. His arguments (more or less that this created a ready-made "resistance movement" with a lot of the smart people in Iraq) seem sensible to me. Being a member of the Ba'ath party was apparently something you simply had to do in order to get any kind of management position or any level of seniority.

Jay Garner's original plan called for retention of most of these people at the low levels of the party; the Ba'ath label goes away, but the manager can stay.

J,
Break it down like this: consider your METT-T planning factors:

Mission: What will we do?

Equipment: What specific or specialized equipment is necessary or available to achieve the mission?

Troops: What soldiers are available for this mission?

Terrain: Over what terrain(s) will I be maneuvering, and what are the local weather effects upon it?

Time: What is the timetable to achieve this mission?

If you play with this template a little, apply it to North Korea, Syria, where-have-you, you might be surprised at what is available to achieve regional missions, especially when considering regional allies like the ROK army (who do tae-kwon-do like we play baseball).

I think we agree more than we disagree, I'm just throwing this out there for your considered chewing-on.