If the soldiers weren't anrgy with Rumsfeld then shame on them (though by all accounts they were). The fact of the matter is that they are fighting and dying because of the bad decisions he's made. The reason the soldiers don't have everything they need and have to "dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor their vehicles" (to quote one soldier) is because Rumsfeld and his people did not prepare for war properly. They did not anticipate a prolonged insurgency, and the victims of their ignorance and arrogance are these soldiers who now have to go digging through landfills for supplies.

And you're right -- there's little he can say to assuage the troops. The best thing he can do is to offer an apology for the current state of the war but to reassuring the troops that they are still fighting the noble fight and that he will do everything in his power to provide them with the necessary equipment. But we all know the Bush administration's policy on admitting fault and accepting responsibility.

I guess you'll have to chalk me up as shameful, then, since I'm not particularly upset with Rumsfeld (certainly not about this, anyhow). And I suspect most soldiers would take issue with your facile designation of them as victims. Although I'm sure you could find a few who would agree.

As for administration policy on admitting fault, it's pretty much the same as every other administration's: don't. And the reason for that is simple enough: because if they were to do so, people like you would simply leap on them with yet more vigor because they had admitted their culpability. It's a no-win scenario for politicians to admit error.

Andrew,

The fact that it's politically expedient to lie or to not admit fault hardly justifies it. Indeed, I was hoping that Bush would now change his tune since he doesn't need to worry about re-election, but all the evidence points to the contrary.

In any case, I'd like to hear your reasons for why you're not upset with Rumsfeld's handling of the war. Even if you supported the war (as I grudgingly did), surely you recognize that post war planning has been, well, non-existent. My impression is that Rumsfeld actually believed that it would be a "cakewalk" and that we'd be greeted with flowers, which is why we were so unprepared for the aftermath.

Here's the case against Rumsfeld:
1) Our troops, who don't have all of the equipment they need, are being attacked by weapons looted from various military facilities that were not secured. We would have been much better off had we actually planned to secure the entire country.
2) In part, we didn't secure the country because we lacked the manpower. This was deliberate. Rumsfeld overruled plans for invading with more troops in order to prove that a war could be won with overwhelming air power and fewer men on the ground. He was right, but only with respect to the initial military stage of the war.
3) Rumsfeld covered up the tortures at Abu Ghraib and other prisons and let those far lower on the totem poll take the fall.
4)Then there are the misleading statements about WMDs, alienating our allies, etc.

The case against sounds strong.

Well, I guess I'll weigh in here, since I'm actually in the theater of operations, at the same base as the soldier who brought up the armor issue, and preparing for the same mission.

1) Up armored vehicles - no, there aren't enough. Who's fault is that? I don't know. I do know that since the start of the war, the factories in the US have been knocking them out as fast as they can. Same goes for body armor (everyone here has it, so as far as I know, there are no shortages on that - in fact, we have extras in case we get additional people). The army has a program in place, which we are using, to add what's called "bolt-on armor" to existing vehicles. basically it's armor plate which is shaped to bolt (or weld) onto the existing frame and provides a level of protection almost as good as the factory built hummers. Is it as good? No. It makes the vehicles more difficult to handle, and reduces your field of view. Am I glad we have it? You better believe it.

2) You talk about securing the country. As someone who knows quite a bit about Stability and Support Operations (that's all I've done for the last 3 years), let me put it this way. In order for us to "secure" the country the way Mike suggests would require the entire adult population of North and Central America. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the world's population today lives in cities, which are a a nightmare to control. To completely deny the enemy the use of a city the size of, say Fallujah, would require a force of nearly 500,000 soldiers - nearly the entire active duty Army. Multiply that by 25 million people and you'll see where I'm going with this. So, did Rumsfeld hold back troops that could have made this easier? Nope. There aren't enough troops in the entire US to make this easy. And don't forget, we do have to have some in reserve in case something else happens (never put all your eggs in one basket!).

3) The other thing to remember is that the atacks you see on TV, and read about in the news are not typical of the entire country. Our S2 (intelligence officer) plots enemy actions on our map board every day, which we all study intently since our lives may depend on understanding their actions. The sections of the country where attacks are occuring occupy about one square foot on a map that's taller than I am. So be careful about making assumptions concerning the state of a nation from a very small statistical sampling. That's like extrapolating the entire US from a picture of a public housing project in Brooklyn - I'll bet most of your houses don't resemble that.

4) I can't make any comments concerning Abu Ghraib, since I wasn't there, and don't have the info. That'll come out in the courts martial.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled blog now...

I have some very strongly held views on how the war in Iraq was planned and is being conducted. Admittedly, my views are colored by my own experiences as an 11B40 and a 71542. However, if the boots on the ground are satisfied with the planning and execution (as implied by Dave) who am I to complain?

Don't misunderstand me, Wolfhound - I have my disagreements with the leadership and the plan as well. It's the age old right of a soldier to gripe about the higher-ups, and we're no different. On the other hand, I'm not the running the show. What I do know is that expecting perfect planning and prediction months in advance of a war is never going to happen. The best anyone can hope for is sufficient flexibility and resources to adapt when the unexpected does occur (and it will). That's where I think the Army is succeeding.

It would be easy to say either "It's too hard, we have to wait for armored Hummers" or "Drive on without armor." The Army chose the difficult (but right) path, and is doing the best it can with what's at hand until something better comes along.

Check out some pics of american armor from WWII/Korea/Vietnam and you'll find that dumpster-diving for (extra)armor is nothing new, it has a long and glorious history. What's different now is that the log dogs are finding it necessary to do so rather than just the line dogs. And I ain't *even* getting into that can o'worms ;)

"Who's fault is that? I don't know. I do know that since the start of the war, the factories in the US have been knocking them out as fast as they can."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-10-military-armor_x.htm

Lots to cover here, and I've got to run, so this will be brief.

I concur that the Bush administration didn't do as good a job preparing for the aftermath of the war as they should have. I still believe that more troops would have been the wisest option, although in Rumsfeld's defense, it is not his fault the attack from the north had to be cancelled. More boots on the ground would have been helpful, though, in my opinion.

Do you have any evidence Rumsfeld covered up anything about Abu Ghraib? That's a pretty serious charge, and I have not seen one bit of evidence to that effect. I called for Rumsfeld to resign as soon as Abu Ghraib came out, because I feel that as SecDef he bears ultimate responsibility for it even though I don't think he had anything to do with it. If you have some evidence that Rumsfeld knew about what was going on and covered it up, please share it.

Spare me from #4. There was a general consensus that Iraq had WMD, and there is no evidence that anyone lied about anything. There is some evidence that our intelligence gathering capabilities are nowhere near as good as they should be, but there appears to be little interest in fixing that as evidenced by the reaction to attempts to stop CIA leaks.

Dave, thanks for the observations and keep your head down over there.

I'll try to keep it brief. First, a reply to Dave:

I concede that FULLY securing Iraq was and is beyond our means. But that's not the issue. The question is whether the country would have been more secure and thus more likely to become a success story if we'd had more troops on the ground. The answer is surely Yes. Now, why didn't we have more troops? Two reasons: 1) Rumsfeld was determined to prove his point that we could conduct large scale military operations without a lot of ground forces, and 2)we alienated our allies who could have provided considerable troops and lent our war an air of legitimacy. Now, some will tell you that countries like France and Germany would never have authorized the war because of their financial ties to Saddam. This is nonsense. Most countries, including ours, have financial connections to Iraq, and countries are capable of acting against their immediate financial interests. The French and Germans merely asked that we give the inspectors (Blix and company) enough time to complete their job. We didn't. If we had had their support, we would've had more troops on the ground, Turkey would have let us invade from the north, and the occupation would have been seen as legitimate. But instead we implemented the Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Cheney plan, and now we're dealing with the consequences (or rather, soldiers like yourself are dealing with them).

Now, Andrew:

My information about Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib comes from Seymour Hersh's brilliant reporting. I won't reproduce the connection here, but I urge you to read his article in the New Yorker here: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

Or, for a brief summary, read Fred Kaplan's article in Slate here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2100683/

As you'll see, the case against Rumsfeld is very strong.

Now, with regard to WMDs, there is plenty of evidence that intelligence was exaggerated and misused. I'll give one quick example. Condoleeza Rice and other Bush administration officials repeatedly claimed that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons programs. These claims were grounded in two pieces of evidence:
1) Iraq's alleged purchase of yellowcake from Niger.
2) Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes.

(1) was based on documents that were known to be forged but still made its way into Bush's state of the union. (2) was directly refuted by experts in the Energy Department who argued that the tubes were not designed for nuclear weapons production. In fact, most US experts completely dismissed the possibility that these tubes could be used in centrifuges designed to create nuclear material. Nevertheless, Rice never mentioned the fact that there was dissent (and lots of it) in the intelligence community regarding Iraq's nuclear program. Time and again she repeated the charge that our intelligence shows that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program even when she knew that most experts disagreed. There's a terrific account of all this in the New York Times which, sadly, got little attention even though it came out in early October.