Formula for success in Iraq?

[firewall]

I was going through this weeks Newsweek's (Sept. 15th, 2003) perspective section.
They quoted Rumsfeld and a US soldier as follows:

"We have the formula here for success." U.S Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, referring to the establishment of order in Iraq, in an address last week to the Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit.

The next one by the soldier follows:

"I dont give a damn about Rumsfeld. All I give a damn about is going home." An unidentified U.S soldier, reacting to Rumsfeld's speech.

If this really is the formula for success in Iraq, I dunno how long the US will last in Iraq. The soldier's over there want to come back to their home while Rumsfeld is pushing them on. How can the soldiers do their job if half their mind and concentration is on their families back at home while their task demands full concentration?

Do you people think this is right? If so, how many chances do you see of US succeeding to achieve its goals in Iraq?

 

[BOBDN]

Originally posted by: asadasif
I was going through this weeks Newsweek's (Sept. 15th, 2003) perspective section.
They quoted Rumsfeld and a US soldier as follows:

"We have the formula here for success." U.S Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, referring to the establishment of order in Iraq, in an address last week to the Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit.

The next one by the soldier follows:

"I dont give a damn about Rumsfeld. All I give a damn about is going home." An unidentified U.S soldier, reacting to Rumsfeld's speech.

If this really is the formula for success in Iraq, I dunno how long the US will last in Iraq. The soldier's over there want to come back to their home while Rumsfeld is pushing them on. How can the soldiers do their job if half their mind and concentration is on their families back at home while their task demands full concentration?

Do you people think this is right? If so, how many chances do you see of US succeeding to achieve its goals in Iraq?

I see the US staying in Iraq until such time as they can make a break for it and get the hell out while they declare success anyway.

 

[firewall]

This would be quite unfair to the Iraqi's and would only tarnish Us's image more ever than before (I know it already is). Why not just accept defeat in controlling Iraq and handing it over truely to the Iraqi's.
The intension WAS to rid the Iraqi people of Saddam and let the people control their own lives which later shifted to WMD's and I dunno what it is now(Guess they are thinking it up in the pentagon and white house right now).

 

[BOBDN]

Originally posted by: asadasif
This would be quite unfair to the Iraqi's and would only tarnish Us's image more ever than before (I know it already is). Why not just accept defeat in controlling Iraq and handing it over truely to the Iraqi's.
The intension WAS to rid the Iraqi people of Saddam and let the people control their own lives which later shifted to WMD's and I dunno what it is now(Guess they are thinking it up in the pentagon and white house right now).

I agree with you. But I fully expect the Bush administration to claim success in failure. I agree it is unfair to the Iraqi people but when was fairness ever a factor in the Bush administration's policy in Iraq?

PS

It started out with WMD then changed to freedom for the Iraqi people and is now some BS about attracting terrorists to Iraq to fight them there "on their own ground" although Iraq wasn't their ground until the Bush administration made it so.

 

[firewall]

oops, sorry for the sequence shift regarding the excuses for war.......

 

[zephyrprime]

How can the soldiers do their job if half their mind and concentration is on their families back at home while their task demands full concentration?

But that's how soldiers always are in most wars. They always long to be back home. There's nothing unique about the Iraq war in this regard.

The intension WAS to rid the Iraqi people of Saddam and let the people control their own lives which later shifted to WMD's and I dunno what it is now(Guess they are thinking it up in the pentagon and white house right now).

Wasn't it the other way around?

But anyway, here's what I think:

I think the Bush admin made a big mistake in thinking that the Iraqis would be so grateful to have Saddam overthrown for them. Sure, most of them don't like Saddam but most of them don't like the US also. Plus I think they're upset that they're not a conquered people (which they are). Even the Iranians couldn't conquer them in 10 years of war but the US walked all over them twice. And, the Iqaqis universally believe that we invaded to control their oil (which I think is untrue. I think we invaded to remake the middle east and force modernity on them in order to undermine the root causes of terrorism). So none of them feel that the war was just and because of this, the Iraqis will rebel and resist. It's pretty obvious that they wouldn't consent to US rule. I honestly don't know why they didn't form a provisional Iraqi government right away. I guess they're afraid of loosing control but I got news for them: there's no way to guarantee control of Iraq other than doing the sorts of things that Saddam did and nobody wants to do that. We can only hope that Iraq doesn't turn into Iran but we can't guarantee it.

By having delayed a provisional government for so long, it seems like the Islamic clerics have gained power and now have their own militias and are even trying to assinate each other in a naked grab for power.

 

[firewall]

You are right, its just that it is a form of protest by the US soldier against the US governments defense minister. Atleast, it ought to be given attention since they are live on the ground and know things much better than we do.........you can never fully trust what the tv news says.....Each channel has its own opinions.

 

[firewall]

The US must give power back to the iraqi's and must not exploit their oil reserves (which I believe they are doing).

 

[phillyTIM]

The forumula for success in Iraq is to depose the Bush Regime right NOW and get a new administration in here that can work with the other nations of this World to band together and make peace.

This strong-arm bvllshit that Bush's Regime is doing absolutely NOTHING but getting innocent people killed, destroying other nations, causing other countries to arm themselves with REAL weapons of mass destruction (NK & Iran, for starters), deeply dividing the United States citizens against each other, and causing the World to turn it's back on the US. What a joke.

 

[CaptnKirk]

The was a time when there was a plan on the table that would simply assume command of the remains of the defeted Iraqi Army.
Our PsyOps dropped tons of leaflets printed in Arabic explaning how to surrender and what they should do to comply.

Iraq Military leaders knew that it was futile to resist a superior force, and first opportunity to make the lack of armed resistance
not appear treasonous to the remaining, but crumbling Iraq Government - they sent their troops home to avoid death in combat.
Pockets of resistance were the product of continued Saddam loyalists that were going to do - or die. They are still dying today.

The understanding at the time was for a re-constituted Iraq Army - after carefull screening, would be restructured to be used
as the police for the country, under direct U.S. Army command and direction. There were nearly 300,000 in their military.
If 1/3 were fit ot serve under our directorship and guidance, we would have a large trained contingency fofrce that if
they understood that they could no longer take advantage of their native population, the eyes and ears of the community
would be more willing to accept our presence and would begin to drop the atitude of confronting the occupying forces.

They have no real job, they were trained and will follow directions, Will that work ? It was one of the original themes for reconstruction.
It doubles the count of 'Police Action' Peacekeepers, and removes or lowers the threshold of risk to our soldiers.
Keeps 'Old' and "New" Europe mimimaly involved, and stops beating up on Allies that have a different world opinion than we have.

 

[tcsenter]

Its more than just a bit dishonest to cite the opinion of one soldier, implying it is representative of all US servicemen and women. I was just watching an interview with two US Servicemen who in different incidents lost one foot and part of their lower leg in Iraq, and both of them want to go back. So by the same standard, shouldn't that mean they speak for more US servicemen and women? Two is more than one, right?

A family member has been in Iraq engaging 'unfriendlies' and living with sand in every crevice of his body since the beginning of February with the US Army Special Forces. He contracted some food-borne intestinal illness and was flat on his back receiving IV fluids for a week with intractable vomiting and diarrhea. He can't wait to come home, like every other member of the service who has ever been deployed overseas for extended periods. But he doesn't whine and complain about it because - like every other member of the service - he volunteered for this kind of stuff.

If he has any complaints about doing what he volunteered for, the only person onto which he should project his frustrations is the man in the mirror. The military isn't a social club, its not the Explorer's Club. If you can't take the heat, stay the hell out of the kitchen.

I remember reading about the lawsuit filed by the mother of a US Marine who was killed, claiming her son 'didn't join the US Marines knowing he might actually have to go to into combat some day'. WTF?

Its actually good to have these kinds of 'tests' because there are invariably going to be a certain percentage of servicemen and women who joined the military for all the wrong reasons and these are most likely going to be the members who prove to be the biggest drag on their units, from combat proficiency to morale. Like a bad employee who constantly bitches and complains, they can drag the whole shift/department down with them. Nobody "likes" being deployed overseas in a hostile environment, but having to listen to someone constantly moaning and complaining can turn the tolerable into the intolerable.

We can only hope these servicemen and women chose to get out of the military at the next opportunity because, quite frankly, they don't belong there.

On edit: And I say this only because it is a sentiment shared by many servicemen and women. Like many untold thousands, I entertained the prospect of joining the military but decided against it precisely because I didn't relish the though of being sent-off to some backwards festering sh-t hole to be shot at for a year. However, had I decided that the benefits of joining the military were worth the risk of being sent-off to some backwards festering sh-t hole to be shot at for a year, I wouldn't be complaining about it. The choice would have been mine, as it was theirs.

The was a time when there was a plan on the table that would simply assume command of the remains of the defeted Iraqi Army. Our PsyOps dropped tons of leaflets printed in Arabic explaning how to surrender and what they should do to comply.

Well I doubt it was ever thought to be "simple". Investigating the backgrounds of a few hundred thousand former police and military members, trying to weed-out Baathists and others who owed their existance to Hussein, and giving those who pass 'crash courses' in civil rights and democracy, would be an enormous task to perform in even a year's time.

More like completely rebuilding a security and military force from the remnants of Iraq's police and defeated army, with the hope that their former military and police experience would substantially shorten the training and implementation curve, not 'simply assuming command of'.