Wednesday, September 3, 2003
Despite a somewhat hyped headline (what else is new?), this story describes some interesting stuff in a leaked post-mortum on the Iraq invasion. Expect foes of the President to sieze on every negative item to trumpet, but that shouldn't prevent friends from listening and taking in the results as part of an honest assessment. The bold will always move forward and risk inevitable error, while the meek stand back, carp, complain and claim to have known better. That is something we knew from the beginning. Besides, we're going to need these lessons for the next time...
U.S. rushed post-Saddam planning - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics
The report awarded three grades. The worst was "capabilities that fell short of expectations or needs, and need to be redressed through new initiatives." Getting this low grade were the postwar planning and the search for weapons of mass destruction, as well as the mix of active and reserve forces, and the troop deployment to the region.
The next grade was "capabilities that demonstrated effectiveness, but need enhancement." Public affairs, special-operations forces, finding bombing targets and tracking the whereabouts of friendly troops received the grade.
The highest marks came under the category of "capabilities that reached new levels of performance and need to be sustained and improved." Joint service warfare, a key war-fighting requirement of Mr. Rumsfeld, got this high grade, as did global war-gaming.
The report also gave high marks to bombing "time-sensitive" targets. In the 2001 Afghanistan war, the report says, Gen. Franks and Mr. Rumsfeld had to approve the target list. But in Iraq, the command improved guidance and procedures so that commanders could launch strikes when targets emerged.
