[Vision2020] General Who Wanted More Troops Now Vindicated

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

I don't think we should have had this war in the first place, but if Bush wanted it, he should have taken the advise of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who was vilified and marginalized by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others.

Here are his exact words when he said it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Irag:

 “We’re talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems,” he added. “And so it takes a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this.”

January 12, 2007, The New York Times
New Strategy Vindicates Ex-Army Chief Shinseki
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 — After President Bush told the nation on Wednesday night that he was ordering a rapid increase of American forces in Iraq, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki was not among the retired officers to offer instant analysis on television.

But the president’s new strategy, with its explicit acknowledgment that not enough troops had been sent to Iraq to establish control, was a vindication for General Shinseki, who as Army chief of staff publicly told Congress as much just before the war began in 2003.

First vilified, then marginalized by the Bush administration after those comments, General Shinseki retired and faded away, even as lawmakers, pundits and politicians increasingly cited his prescience.

“We never had enough troops to begin with,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said just before the president’s televised address. “A month or two ago we found out the Army is broken, and they agreed that General Shinseki was right.”

Gen. John P. Abizaid, the departing commander of American forces in the Middle East, told Congress late last year, “General Shinseki was right that a greater international force contribution, U.S. force contribution and Iraqi force contribution should have been available immediately after major combat operations.”

In his prime-time address on Wednesday, even President Bush said the main reason past efforts to stabilize Baghdad had failed was that “there were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents.”

The acknowledgment was far different from the harsh administration rebuttals after General Shinseki electrified Washington with his blunt warning that victory in Iraq would require more troops than were being deployed for the invasion.

He was the target of immediate rebuke from the Pentagon leadership, in particular from Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense, and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz. Mr. Wolfowitz dismissed the testimony as “wildly off the mark.”

Some civilians in government and military officers say General Shinseki’s treatment intimidated other top officers.

“It sent a very clear signal to the military leadership about how that kind of military judgment was going to be valued,” said Kori Schake, the director for defense strategy on the National Security Council staff from 2002 to 2005, now a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at West Point. “So it served to silence critics just at the point in time when, internal to the process, you most wanted critical judgment.”

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