Exit Strategy

[tw]

Originally posted by Kitsune
We had 6 month to get it right.

What? Let me get this straight: You expected the US to deploy an army overseas, overthrow a dictator, rebuild the infrastructure we blew to pieces, and restore civillian happiness in a mere six months? ...
I also expect that we aren't planning on leaving Afghanistan within the next ten, as we haven't even started to think about rebuilding that place in comparison to Iraq.

1) We were very careful to not attack power plants, water treatment factilities, communication buildings, and other infastructure. The infastructure was fundamentally intact. This was done intentionally to only disable the functions but leave the expensive stuff intact. One month after the Gulf War, and with those factilities attacked; still, Saddam could have full electricity, et al working in one month. We had big explosions on palaces and other irrelevant factilities - places irrelevant to the infastructure. And like in all wars, the planning for surrender is conducted long before the military victory is achieved. Did we not learn that even in WWII history books? Of course. But this war was fought without any such plans - as even evident in the after action reports from Third Infantry.

We well should have had a functioning army, a working police force, full electricity, etc all working in six months. But instead we fired all the smart people, disbanded the army and police, ignored warning even from State Dept studies conducted one year previous, and provided insufficient troops without even orders to stop the looting. IOW we created the mess by not even listening to what Pentagon Generals were saying. At least 200,000 troops for two years. How do you turn on the electricity when the electricity expert is only a tank commander? What does an artillery officer know about hospitals?

We did not have the people, skills, or intent to have Iraq functioning in six months. We did not even have Bremmer assigned for months afterwards. Administration was that ad hoc and unplanned. No matter what the orders were at field level, it could not happen without intent from highest levels of the US government and without people that have necessary skills. We kept both out of Iraq. Even Saddam previously accomplished same in only one month.

2) Afghanistan is a war justified by the smoking gun. But we are not there. We bailed out before a strategic objective was achieved - Al Qaeda in general and bin Laden in specific. Afghanistan is a NATO problem because we bailed out early to invade Iraq. Afghanistan should be a ten year project for the US. But somehow, the public believed presidential lies such as "Saddam is responsible for the attack on the WTC". And so one-half of Afghanistan has again fallen into the control of anti-Americans. Again, we bailed out before we had solved a problem that virtually every nation said we had the total right to conquer and solve.

I expect the army to finish removing our enemies and not go off on some boondoogle that was no threat to the US. Even the commander of Central Command was furious when George Jr ordered him to make plans to invade Iraq only five months after the WTC destruction. As a smart man, that general understood that Afghanistan was not solved.

Even moreso, Iraq was no threat. The list of generals and other political experts saying so is quite long. It includes General Norman Swartzkopf, most every previous Joint Chief of Staff, and Brent Scowcroft. Some bluntly say we had Saddam cornered in a box; no threat to anyone. We now know they were correct. So why did we not finish in a country were a real threat still exists? Afghanistan. Again, failures directly traceable to top management in the White House.

Lets keep two facts staight. 1) We could have done in six months what Saddam previously did in one. And 2) the real threat still exists - in Afghanistan where we failed to accomplish the strategic objective. In fact we still are not trying to fix the real problem - Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. All problems directly traceable to the same president with a long history of reading little and just knowing (from his gut and his neocon agenda) what the right thing is to do. Clearly his sources of information must be extra-terrestrial because he is not consulting the people who know the facts.

Which brings us right back to the George Jr exit strategy. Bail fast enough so that when things get worse, then others can be blamed. Already Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez is on the blame list. Originally on the list for a fourth star, it is now apparent that he will not even get command of Southern Command. Another someone that the administration can blame when he was only doing the impossible as ordered by George Jr and Rumsfeld. That is apparently the exit strategy. Bail and blame others.

One interesting point. That means the administration finally decided to stop treating Iraq as if it was some sort of prize. The new exit strategy.