U.S. plan low-balled Iraq costs, strategist says

[Barrett808]

U.S. plan low-balled Iraq costs, strategist says
Victory the focus, not nation building
By BARRIE McKENNA
Thursday, April 15, 2004 - Page A11

WASHINGTON -- A top U.S. military strategist says the Bush administration's war in Iraq was crafted to be quick and cheap, crippling longer-term efforts to build a stable and democratic country.

The administration "either misunderstood or, worse, wished away" the hard slogging required to build a country, exposing serious flaws in the way the United States is waging its war against terrorism, according to a hard-hitting paper by Lieutenant-Colonel Antulio Echevarria of the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute.

"The desire to win the war quickly and on the cheap," says Col. Echevarria, a prominent military thinker and director of the institute, based in Carlisle, Pa.

President George W. Bush insisted this week that the core U.S. objective in Iraq is to forge "an independent, free and secure Iraq."

Yet the Pentagon's Iraq "shock-and-awe" blueprint was focused not on nation building but on "achieving rapid military victories" with a nimble and small ground force "equipped only to win battles, not wars," Col. Echevarria says in his paper.

(more)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040415/IRAQMILITARY15/TPInternational/Americas

[yowzayowzayowza]

1. Suprise, suprise, suprise.

NOT.

[AussieInCA]

2. bush must of forgot to read that 'nation building' pdb

condi can come out and say it was a 'historical document' and all will be well right???

[joefree1]

3. Uh, so how much for the "freedom fries?"

[Dark]

4. This is really worrying me. . .

The tape also condemned the US-led occupation of Iraq as a money-making scheme for companies making weapons or aiding reconstruction efforts - specifically naming the American firm Halliburton.

Now neocons are going to be telling us that if we accuse (or rather tell the truth about) the Bu$h regime's invasion of Iraq simply about profits that we're siding and collaborating with the terrorists. Ugh, this is going to be a nasty election year.

[UpInArms]

5. this was all foretold

only those that said the truth were silenced :sigh:

http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=2877

Some top military brass and career officials in the Department of Defense are quietly but firmly expressing their opposition to the war, recognizing that an invasion of Iraq would be the most complicated and bloody U.S. military operation since Vietnam. This, in turn, would strengthen anti-war opposition further. The Vietnam War taught the U.S. military that it should not fight in any major war without the backing of the majority of the American public. Currently, the U.S. military is one of the most respected institutions in America. It does not want to go back to the days when military recruiters could not even show up on college campuses without demonstrations breaking out. As military officials, they will certainly obey the orders of their commander-in-chief if called into combat. However, the more anti-war forces grow, the greater the U.S. military will be concerned about its own institutional self-preservation.

The intelligence wing of the Central Intelligence Agency--unlike the operations wing--is composed largely of professionals whose concerns are less ideological. They are focused instead on how to protect American security. CIA cost/benefit analyses have shown that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would threaten rather than protect American interests.

In effect, we have the ironic situation where the peace movement finds some of its most significant allies are the Pentagon and the CIA. These very influential actors in foreign policy decisionmaking could potentially allow cooler heads to prevail. Indeed, they are joined in their opposition by top foreign and defense policy officials from former Republican administrations, including Lawrence Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft, and retired General Anthony Zinni.

...more...

[Rex]

6. This is GOP Capitalism at its finest.

Find the cheapest materials available and skimp on the extras. Privatize anything and everything not bolted down to the floor. Everyone is expendable. The company that can graft or embezzle the most wins.

Didn't we used to hang people that stole horses & cattle?