Let's Go to the Videotape: Shinseki vs Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz

[See You Next Wednesday]

Feb. 23, 2003

SEN. LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?

GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements. But I think --

SEN. LEVIN: How about a range?

GEN. SHINSEKI: I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this.


Feb. 25, 2003

DONALD RUMSFELD: The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark.


Feb. 28, 2003

PAUL WOLFOWICZ: ...wildly off the mark...It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.


Nov. 15, 2006

GEN. ABIZAID: Shinseki was right.

[Cuda]

More American bombs might have had the desired æffect, though.

Fallujah & Ramadi & Tikrit should have been obliterated 3 years ago.

Too late for that now

See You Next Wednesday is a lying dumbfuck

What Abazaid actually said was that since the mission was now getting the Iraqis to take responsibility over their own defense & security, sending in more troops now would have the exact opposite æffect on them

[See You Next Wednesday]

More American bombs might have had the desired æffect, though.

Fallujah & Ramadi & Tikrit should have been obliterated 3 years ago.

Too late for that now

See You Next Wednesday is a lying dumbfuck

What Abazaid actually said was that since the mission was now getting the Iraqis to take responsibility over their own defense & security, sending in more troops now would have the exact opposite æffect on them

From the NY Times:

General Abizaid almost provided some vindication for Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, who warned early in the Iraq campaign that several hundred thousand troops would be required to impose stability in Iraq once Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

“General Shinseki was right,” General Abizaid said in response to a question by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

[Cuda]

NY Times is NOT the videotape.

Lindsay Graham's (he's clearly a faggot, btw) question had to do with 2003, not 2006

In response to qestions about 2006, Abazaid did indeed say sending in more troops is exactly the wrong thing to do

I'm afraid that still puts you in the Lying Dumbfuck category

[Tom In VA]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/15/ ... index.html

"When I come to Washington, I feel despair. When I'm in Iraq with my commanders, when I talk to our soldiers, when I talk to the Iraqi leadership, they are not despairing," Abizaid said. "They believe that they can move the country toward stability with our help. And I believe that."

Interesting statement.

[Tom In VA]

At the time perhaps it was waning.


About 40 dead in March 2005 compared to 100 or so in October of 2006.

Maybe they smelled blood in the water.

[Tom In VA]

I don't know enough to say that.

What's your opinion on "Vietnamization" and how that worked out for the U.S ?

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Your entire country has lost their minds.

A well organized resistance can sit on their hands for years. I don't care if you had planned to occupy them with a force equal to the
population of New York City. Talk of more troops borders on lunacy...

[Dr_Phibes]

It seems as though both the official and unofficial version of events are being thrown out at the same time.

[Tom In VA]

I am not suggesting that.

We get Abizaid asking Congress to re-think this "phased redeployment" crap and it is beginning to look like deja vu all over again.

"Bring them home now", I am with you, but I don't think it's going to happen that way and I think Hadji is going to do his best to kick the troops while they're leaving ...

In a nutshell, do you foresee a bigger clusterfuck in pulling out slowly, i.e. the "phased redeployment" ?

[Mister Bushice]

This will end badly for the iraqis, as Vietnam did for the vietnamese. The "enemy" will take over in some form and go on killing for a few years until the people rise up or something occurs to stop it.

You can't say that they didn't have the opportunity to get it right, but I say fuck em. They aren't worth the blood of our soldiers anymore.

[Tom In VA]

In a nutshell, do you foresee a bigger clusterfuck in pulling out slowly, i.e. the "phased redeployment" ?

No, I forsee more of our guys getting killed after we've decided that we aren't fighting this war to win.
They will be dying so cock knobs in Washington and Baghdad can "save face".

I was under the impression that is precisely what "Vietnamization" did in Vietnam, which I why I used that term in my initial question.

Stay and change tactics (which is the vibe I'm getting from Abizaid) vs. "phased redeployment",

In your view which is the better route ?

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

This will end badly for the iraqis, as Vietnam did for the vietnamese.

It ended quite nicely for the Vietnamese. They got rid of you.

Any killing that went on afterwards (of a few traitorous lackey dogs) was purely incidental and miniscule compared to the
suffering you brought upon innocent Vietnamese for more than a decade.

What's with this mythology that Vietnam erupted into a bloodbath after you guys cut and ran?
Next time you get an unsolicited e-mail from the Heritage Foundation, just hit DELETE.

[Mister Bushice]

This will end badly for the iraqis, as Vietnam did for the vietnamese.

It ended quite nicely for the Vietnamese. They got rid of you.

I wasn't there, being way too young to hold a rilfe, much less aim it.

Any killing that went on afterwards (of a few traitorous lackey dogs) was purely incidental and miniscule compared to the
suffering you brought upon innocent Vietnamese for more than a decade.

Exactly my point. The suffering that went on for a decade.

What's with this mythology that Vietnam erupted into a bloodbath after you guys cut and ran?
Next time you get an unsolicited e-mail from the Heritage Foundation, just hit DELETE.

The relocation of South Vietnamese to "Reeducation camps" as traitors and The Khmer Rouge and the Chinese invasions say otherwise.

[Cuda]

This will end badly for the iraqis, as Vietnam did for the vietnamese. .

With any luck, it will end as badly for the Iraqis as it did for the Cambodians

[Dr_Phibes]

until the people rise up or something occurs to stop it.

Yet strangely enough, this never seems to happen when you withdraw from your larger adventures.

You can't say that they didn't have the opportunity to get it right, but I say fuck em.

That is one of the most obnoxious and arrogant things I've ever read.

You are simply not the British Empire. When you go into a place, you generally flatten it beforehand, attempt to brutalise into submission, then wonder why your love isn't reciprocated. 'Standing Up' for someone who has done very little to warrant standing up for, is comedy at it's best. I think they're doing a wonderful job of 'standing up' for themselves at the moment.

[Dr_Phibes]

Sorry, but you're wrong there.

An example from Viet Nam would be the initial bombing campaign of the southern countryside - designed to drive the population into urban centres with the rationale being that you can't have a rural insurgency without a rural population.
It seems rather obvious, but people have a tendency to resent being bombed. As a source, read the pentagon papers.
This would also include the rational behind the northern bombing campaign.

The bombing campaign in Cambodia increased the power of the Khmer Rouge by fifteen.

In Iraq - refer to 'rebuilding'. Infrastructure was smashed, contrary to the strict the rules of war and simply never rebuilt in an adequate fashion, which I'm certain you know the various reasons for.

Also refer to the Fallujah reprisals - this is a total contradiction keeping with 'hearts and minds', democracy, etc. The effect was opposite.

Another example - Israel's recent little Hezbollah adventure. Former Israeli support from anti- Hezbollah factions has evaporated.

See also Serbia. Hardly the shining example of a capitalist state that Clinton expected.

You are conflicted and you will always fail, the guiding principles behind any strategic bombing campaign are not conducive to a democratic/subservient population.

[Mister Bushice]

You can't say that they didn't have the opportunity to get it right, but I say fuck em.


That is one of the most obnoxious and arrogant things I've ever read.

It's been a whole year since the constitution was voted on, more than two years since the government was formed, and how long have they been training iraq forces? The iraqi people have had plenty of time to show that they can stand up against the insurgents, to stop the violent attacks committed by their own people, and yet they do so little the attacks increase, they don't decrease.

Don't tell me they don't know who is doing it.

They have been given a window of opportunity. The coalition gave them a chance to escape the rule of a dictator and the tortures and death he inflicted on them and form a free society.

It's obvious they don't care enough to stop it. The religious leaders, said to have so much power over the people, say nothing, and do less, so fuck them. Let them live in the violence and hatred they create.

"Religion of peace" my white pimply ass. What a fucking joke that is.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

They have been given a window of opportunity.

How gracious of you.

[Mister Bushice]

Nothing gracious about it. removing saddam was something that needed to be done. It's too bad Bush and his stooges fucked up the post war plan so badly, but the iraqis don't seem all that eager to live in peace.

They want us to leave anyway, so lets do it. Time to step out of the way and let them off each other.

[Mikey]

Paul Bremer should have been shot in the face.

RACK all Dick Cheney resets.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Inviting the Iranians in was a shockingly stupid thing to do, though. Paul Bremer should have been shot in the face.

What the fuck are you talking about? You're hanging this on Bremer?

[Mister Bushice]

unbelievable.

WHere did you hear about that?

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

One of Bremer's staffers got the bright idea to utilize the Badr Brigade to fight Baathist insurgents. Now they are styled as the Badr Organization are dug into the Interior Ministry like ticks.

So, instead of wiping out radical theocrats like al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, we need to keep him around as a counterweight to the Iranian faction.

Oh, I get it. You want to start the whole war all over again, this time against the Shiites.

Gotcha.
:wink:

al-Sadr's family name carries more weight than you think, regardless of your perceived notions of his effectiveness in rallying
a viable resistance.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

I expect that he will eventually come out on top.

Inshallah.

[Cuda]

al-Sadr's family name carries more weight than you think, regardless of your perceived notions of his effectiveness in rallying
a viable resistance.

He's quite effective. He has essentially completely reconstituted his militia. We wasted thousands of them in Najaf and Baghdad a couple years back. I expect that he will eventually come out on top.

With the Iranians funding & supplying him, he'd have to be dumber than IRIE not to come out on top.

And when they're done with him, or if he outlives his usefullness, or if he starts being a pain in the ass , the Iranians will also be the ones who off his scruffy ass.

[Cuda]

al Sadr is a shiite, dumbass. Iran isn't funding the Sunnis.

[Cuda]

Sadr has religious & family links in Iran going back several generations. There's no way Iran is not funding & supplying him.

that doesn't mean they can't fund & supply rival shiite militias- so they can play both ends against the middle.

Creating as much civil unrest as possible in Iraq is in Iran's interest because it keeps us occupied there so we can't launch any operations against their nuclear facilities.

[Cuda]

What makes you think they're not supporting both factions?

In fact, I'm not so sure anymore that they aren't backing some of the Sunnis as well.

As long as our politicians buy into the "we can't just suddenly pull out" line of bullshit, we're much less of a threat to the Iranian mullahs or their nuke program.