Plus: Michael Kelly remembered.

The post-Saddam era ... isn't that when, led by idealistic hawks such as Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. is supposed to achieve a Mideast peace by pressuring both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, including pressuring Israel on ithe settlement issue? This story  -- assuming it's true (it's in The Guardian) -- doesn't seem an auspicious sign. ... Has Ariel Sharon been getting advice from Jo Moore? ... 10:28 A.M.

Andrew Sullivan prints a good pro-Army email making the case against Rumsfeld on the troop dilution issue. It seems to have reduced Sullivan himself to a state of ambivalence  ("I have a feeling this debate is going to go on fo [sic] quite some time") from his earlier, more typical position of instantaneous sneering certitude ("I guess the anti-neo-cons have got to grasp at something"). Maybe he'll give himself one of his awards. ... 2:00 A.M.

'How was it out there?': NBC's Dr. Bob Arnot has always seemed a sensible fellow. But at the moment -- 1:20 A.M., PST -- he's in central Baghdad sticking his microphone in the face of a Marine officer trying to take out an Iraqi armored personnel carrier, as if the commander were an Indy 500 driver on a pit stop. Isn't this behavior kind of annoying to the Marines trying to do their jobs in hostile territory? ... (The last embedded reporter I saw who seemed slightly out of control like this was in fact soon kicked out of his unit by the commanding officer.) ... 1:32 A.M.

Saturday, April 5, 2003

Backup! Ralph Peters, a pro-war conservative ex-officer writing in the New York Post -- who has been pretty level-headed throughout the conflict -- makes the updated "troop dilution" case against Rumsfeld. It's not definitive, but it's much more convincing than Bill Keller's defense. And Peters can't be dismissed as a Johnny-Apple quagmirist. Highlights:

Fortunately, we are not faced with failure. The outcome of this war, if not the timing of that outcome, truly is not in doubt. But events did not proceed according to plan.

The much-heralded initial airstrikes failed and are now conveniently forgotten. The ground campaign assumed the lead from the first days of the war - which definitely was not according to the plan. And the number of ground forces permitted to the theater commander was inadequate by any honest measure. ...

Yet, the bare-bones forces we have in Iraq are far more in number than [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] wanted to send. At one point in the long planning process, Secretary Rumsfeld's civilian advisers - not one of whom had served in the military - insisted the ground campaign would require less than 10,000 combat troops, who would take a Sunday drive to Baghdad after the regime had been toppled by technology. The generals had to fight bitterly to overcome such madcap notions. ...

Embarrassed by its miscalculations, OSD now insists that the deployment of additional heavy divisions from the United States had always been part of the plan. This is technically correct, but only because of the way formal military planning proceeds during any build-up to a crisis. If those troops actually had been intended for this campaign, they would have been sent to the Gulf months ago. ...

The truth is that OSD expected a brief, nearly painless conflict, despite months of warnings from those in uniform. The deployment of units Pentagon spokespersons now insist were "always in the pipeline" was simply a matter of pro forma military planning. The military bureaucracy so despised by the secretary of defense has provided him a fig leaf. But it does not help the troops in the field, who have been deprived of the back-up forces essential for security and a margin of safety. ...

Emphasis added! P.S.: It's probably an overstatement to say the "initial airstrikes failed." As Mark Steyn suggests, the Iraqis are certainly behaving as if their "command and control" systems have been badly damaged. But the regime didn't crack, which I assume was Peters' point.  ... 5:10 P.M.

Bill Keller vs. Michael Gordon: I'm willing to be convinced that the grouchy old retired generals were wrong and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld committed plenty of troops to the Iraq invasion. But Bill Keller's column  doesn't come close to doing the convincing. Keller's one (1) paragraph on the troop-dilution issue is this:

The military column across Iraq is thinner than some would like, that is not a consequence of "doing it on the cheap" but of failed diplomacy. The original game plan called for an extra heavy division, possibly two, to move on Baghdad from the north through Turkey. When the Turks said no, Mr. Rumsfeld had a choice: start quickly and let the other troops catch up, or wait a month for two dozen shiploads of equipment to be rerouted to Kuwait, and then start the war in truly grim weather. He made an entirely defensible military choice, clearly with the endorsement of his main commanders, and (again the mantra, so far) it has worked.

First, is Turkey an excuse? It was always clear Turkey might say no. If the troops really were needed, shouldn't we have had a fallback plan? The 4th Infantry Division, the one that was on ships bound for Turkey, isn't the only other division in the Army. Second, the month's delay cited by Keller assumes the 4th was rerouted from Turkey as soon as was possible, which isn't at all clear. (And even a two-week delay in the war would have put the 4th two weeks closer to catching up.) Third, while it will probably all work out, and soon, all a reader has to do is turn to the front page of Keller's paper to read a much more sobering and detailed analysis from reporter Michael Gordon: