On Tactics
Evidence is mounting that the Bush administration, eager to test new military and geopolitical doctrines simultaneously, rushed into Iraq with too few troops. "The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," a former spook tells the New Yorker. Former Wall Street Journal editorial writer Max Boot, a Daily Cal alum, notes we went into the war with only one heavy division and a total of 150,000 troops, compared with the 250,000 we originally intended and the 450,000 used to liberate Kuwait in the first Gulf War. From a sobering Business Week dispatch: "Back in Kuwait, Brigadier General Louis W. Weber had spoken confidently of shortly taking a bath in one of Saddam Hussein's gilded tubs. Now, the 3ID's No. 3 commander was telling me that he hadn't expected such serious Iraqi resistance." Ex special ops pilot John Robb: "We don't have enough troops in theater to accomplish the mission "
If this misstep is all the more remarkable considering the level of top defense experience in the administration and the amount of time available to prepare for the attack. It also appears tied to a diplomatic policy that also may have been poorly executed, since it was caused in part by the erroneous assumption the U.S. would be able to send its troops through Turkey.
The antiwar movement is also shifting its tactics.
Tonight: Madera Road and The Devil's Own.
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