Here’s an email worth running in full. It makes some excellent points about the war so far:
I will admit to being a bit of an Army partisan. I’m also the first to acknowledge the brilliant work the Air Force has done in close air support (bombing of tanks, troops, etc). It looks like the strategic work (Baghdad, communications networks, etc) has been more mixed, but even there the jury will be out until the war is over. But with “it looks as if this war will be won primarily by the amazing work of the special forces, and the airforce” you’re off base. I think a full reading of the available reporting from both the embeds and those covering the larger view will bear that out. But I’ll highlight a few points –
-The 3rd Infantry Division has been in one giant knife fight for much of its charge north (a charge praised by the British, see London Times). The 3rd Squadron of the 7th Cavalry Regiment (the lead element for the 3rd ID) has been in some brutal battles. In those battles the Army has lost M-1 tanks on the battlefield for the first time EVER. Both the Marines and Army have been fighting house to house. We’re hearing anecdotal stories of streets covered with dead Iraqi troops. This has been a brutal fight. John Ringo (www.johnringo.com), a Fox contributer and former paratrooper might be a good guy to talk to if you’re interested. He’s pretty accessible (though I don’t know him) and well informed on the 7th Cavalry’s recent battles.
-You say “Rummy” was right. Rummy also said we didn’t need the Brits. Imagine where we would be if the Brits weren’t bottling up Basra with a couple of brigades. Keep in mind the Brits have one division in country, and we only have a little more than two. That he would even consider writing off that contribution should tell you a little about what he thought this war was going to be like.
-Everyone talks about the plan for a “rolling start”. Why? It’s BS to suggest that this was Frank’s ideal plan. Vernon Loeb’s reporting in the Washington Post makes that clear. Rumsfeld tore up plan after plan until he got a small enough force that he could live with. But WHY? It’s one thing if you have to make decisions about what to do when you don’t have time to build forces. But this war has been likely, if not certain, for months. What was the downside in having another division in the desert? Were the political, economic, logistic, and troop issues so overwhelming that it couldn’t be done? I actually think the costs were pretty minimal.
-I hope that we don’t need to fight house to house in Baghdad or Tikrit. I will be thrilled if this all ends tonight. But what if we do have to join that fight? Do we have enough troops?
Someone needs to show me where, because I don’t see it, until the 4th ID gets there. If then.-At least some of the rapid success has to do with Iraqi failures. Not blowing bridges, for example. Did spec ops and the AF contribute to this? Probably. Should it be something that we count on? Of course not. Is Barry McCaffery (or anyone else) wrong to worry about what could go wrong? Again, of course not. Should we count on this in whatever’s next? No.
-You’re putting an awful lot of weight on the musings of one infantry company XO (probably about 25 years old) with the Post article that you cite. In any case, “Air Force jets, Army AH-64 Apache helicopters and multiple-rocket launchers” – two of the three are Army. And the multiple-rocket launchers (MLRS) are Army artillery – “the dominant tactical weapon on the battlefield” – so says General McCaffery (Kudlow and Cramer, a couple of nights ago).
-Sometimes military officers need a kick in the pants to make needed change. But in not giving them what they ask for (and again, there is no way CENTCOM and V Corps got what they would have preferred), you assume a massive responsibility. Again, it’s one thing if you face a political decision to fight and you don’t have time to get them what they would like in a perfect world. But it’s a different animal if you have the time and you’re taking the opportunity to test a new theory.
-Even if this does end tomorrow, I don’t think anyone looking at this in a year would say that we had the appropriate amount of ground forces in the south. Turkey’s surprise not withstanding, there was no margin for error. One company out of place, one Iraqi tank company sneaking past into our supply convoys, and we would have been facing a disaster, because we had no significant reserves, and no troops with which to secure the areas in the south.
I don’t mean to beat a point to death, but I think the reporting on this point is out there. Do not sell short what these people (Army and Marines) have had to do.
I have a feeling this debate is going to go on fo quite some time.
The Dish 