I've just won my Democratic Primary runoff election in Texas CD 10 by 71%. I do not for a minute confuse this result with November. I am the underdog, but I'll mention something later that happened during the election that should give all of us some hope. Back to RummyWorld. There was a chance that we could have succeeded in Iraq. Slim, but it existed up to one very critical point when Rummy made a fatal error.
Gen Eric Shinseki told Rummy that there weren't enough troops to occupy Iraq. How much is enough? The original war plan had Iraq in a pincher. Troops were to come up from the South from Kuwait, and down from the North from Turkey. Armor and equipment were prepositioned in Kuwait and at Turkish ports for the troops, which were to fly in from the US and Germany. Turkey's government changed during the lead-up to the war, and the new government refused to allow American troops to launch from Turkey. At this point, a risky plan became an impossible plan.
There was never any doubt that a relatively small American force could defeat Saddam's forces, because of our overwhelming firepower. The critical part comes afterwards. Rummy thought we would be greeted the way Allied troops were greeted in Paris. It didn't work out that way because of the way our single line of attack from the South had to rush North. It bypassed fedayeen strong points whose fighters have become the insurgency. It bypassed and left intact the large ammo dumps that have been the source of all the IED killers of our troops and the suicide bombs. The General commanding the forces from the South has recently reported that when he objected to leaving all these threats in his rear, he was threatened with relief of his command by Gen. Tommy Franks. There is no doubt in my mind where those instructions came from. The forces from the South had to rush to Baghdad, and then to places North of Baghdad, like Falujah and Tikrit, because there was no column coming down from Turkey.
The troops that were to be part of the Northern prong had to wait for their equipment to be brought around from the Mediterranean ports to the Gulf, unloaded, and made ready for combat before they could be flown into Kuwait and move North. So, two things happened. Strong points and ammo dumps were bypassed in the rush to Baghdad, and we had even fewer troops on the ground in Baghdad and elsewhere than would have otherwise been the case. We couldn't control the looting with the troops we had, and immediately lost control of the country.
I do not believe that this aspect of the poor execution of the war has been much discussed. But, I believe that it will be an integral part of future case studies in our War Colleges. I attended the National War College, and it was just this sort of failure of National Command Authority that we studied. Rummy did it, and careerism on the part of some of our senior military commanders let him get away with it. I have long believed that if Colin Powell had forgotten his long-ingrained subservience to authority, after having had his say, and resigned as Secretary of State; we would not be in this fix. I also believe that if the General Officers who are now criticizing the prosecution of the war from the safe haven of retirement had had a little less careerism and resigned when they were given poor instructions by National Command Authority, including Rummy, the Country would have been much better off and there would be far fewer sons and daughters in silver caskets.
Some good news: As part of my runoff campaign, we sent mailers to every person that voted in the Primary. One of the County Chairs participating in this didn't recognize a number of names. A spot check of two precincts against the Party Master Voter's list showed that 20% of the people voting in the Democratic primary had never voted in a primary before, or had voted in one of four prior Republican primaries. It's already happening, folks. The rank and file voters are so disgusted with politics as they are being practiced that they are crossing over. You can check my website HERE and CONTRIBUTE