Can We Get A Fact Check From Fred Kaplan?

With Admiral Fallon in the news Fred Kaplan of Slate recycles an oldy but goody lefty meme that has already been implicitly debunked by... Fred Kaplan of Slate.

The oldy relates to Gen. Eric Shinseki; here is current Fred, as on aside on the Admiral Fallon situation:

This is nothing like the case of Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who had his career cut short by Donald Rumsfeld for telling a Senate committee that a few hundred thousand troops would be needed to impose order in postwar Iraq.

No, no, no - John Kerry spent the 2004 campaign promoting that liberal vision, but the facts were against him.  Briefly, Rumsfeld and Shinseki clashed over Rumsfeld's vision for a lighter Army (see IHT), with Rumsfeld frowning on the Crusader weapons system and Shinseki backing it.  In April 2002 the WaPo reported that, although Shinseki would step down as scheduled in June 2003, his successor had already been selected by Rumsfeld; that announcement left Shinseki offering advice as a castrato.

In Feb 2003, Shinseki publicly broke with Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld over the appropriate force levels needed to occupy Iraq, and in June 2003 Shinseki stepped down as scheduled.

So, unless Rumsfeld knee-capped him in April 2002 in anticipation of some unpleasantness over Iraq in 2003, it is hard to make the cause-effect link between Shinseki's Senate testimony and his treatment by Rumsfeld.  More likely, Shinseki's public rupture was a symptom of his already diminished status.

Some of this will not be news to Mr. Kaplan, who implicitly refuted his current argument back in 2006 when he wrote this:

The patron saint, but also the object lesson, of the many officers who are mulling their options—whether to heed Newbold's rallying cry or keep their heads down and shoes polished—is Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff who spoke truth to power and got slammed for his troubles. Shortly before the invasion, Shinseki told the Senate armed services committee that "a few hundred thousand" troops would be needed to impose order after the war was over. Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy secretary of defense, upbraided him in public the next day; Rumsfeld named Shinseki's successor a year in advance of his scheduled retirement, thus undercutting his authority for the rest of his term.

Hmm.  Kaplan got the "year in advance" roughly correct but didn't think through the timeline - Shinseki gave the controversial testimony in Feb 2003 and stepped down as scheduled in June 2003.  Kaplan also failed to follow his own links - he writes about

Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who ran the program to train the Iraqi military, followed with a New York Times op-ed piece lambasting Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically," and a man who "has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his Cold Warrior's view of the world, and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower."

but if he had read General Eaton's op-ed a bit more carefully he would have seen this in the paragraph following the one he excerpted:

Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his Cold Warrior's view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower. As a result, the U.S. Army finds itself severely undermanned - cut to 10 active divisions but asked by the administration to support a foreign policy that requires at least 12 or 14.

Only General Eric Shinseki, the army chief of staff when President George W. Bush was elected, had the courage to challenge the downsizing plans. So Rumsfeld retaliated by naming Shinseki's successor more than a year before his scheduled retirement, effectively undercutting his authority. The rest of the senior brass got the message, and nobody has complained since.

Clear?  Shinseki was unhappy about Rumsfeld's plans for a smaller Army and got pushed to one side; he then complained that the Army presence in Iraq was not heavy enough, and Rumsfeld continued to disagree.

With Adm. Fallon in the news I'll bet Kaplan won't be the only one propagating this old lefty meme.

BAFFLING:  I can't explain the WaPo interpretation they provided alongside their 2004 debate coverage (in the pop-up):

Kerry was technically incorrect, but close to the mark, when he said that the administration retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, because he said that more troops were necessary in Iraq.

Shinseki first made his remarks on Feb. 26, 2003, telling the Senate Armed Service Committee that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to secure postwar Iraq. "Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took exception with the Shinseki's estimate, telling reporters at the time that he believed it "will prove to be high." Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, was far more blunt, telling the House Budget Committee that Shinseki's estimate was "way off the mark."

Shinseki refused to back down, repeating his estimate two weeks later in testimony before the House subcommittee on defense appropriations.

Shinseki was permitted to retire on schedule. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Defense Department officials leaked the name of Shinseki's successor as Army chief of staff in revenge for his public comments that more troops were necessary in Iraq. Shinseki made those comments after the name of his successor was leaked.

So per the WaPo, Shinseki was allowed to retire on schedule, and his successor had been leaked well in advance of his testimony, not in retaliation for his testimony.  OK, so in what sense was Kerry correct?  My guess - in the sense that Bush was a Republican.

   

Comments

[Jeff]

Just to be clear then, your point is that Shinseki was fired by Rumsfeld for a broad disagreement about the military, but he was only publicly humiliated by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for a disagreement about the appropriate force levels for Iraq, right, as he'd already been fired?

And I keep forgetting. Remind me again who was right?

[Other Tom]

"...your point is that Shinseki was fired by Rumsfeld..."

Actually, that's not TM's point, and in fact anyone who asserts that Shinseki was fired is asserting falsehood. Check the facts.

I take it that Jeff supports the surge--right?

[Sue]

Nuance doesn't work when republicans are involved. That is the lesson here.

[Sue]

And I keep forgetting. Remind me again who was right?

Rumsfeld.

[SPQR]

Jeff, read the post again.

[Other Tom]

Jeff is not feeling well right now...

[clarice]

He shows the level of attention to fact normal in the groves of academe these days.

[Justin]

Just so we are all clear, the Army was cut to 10 divisions by the Clinton Admin., not Rumsfeld as Gen. Eaton's quotes seem to imply. Rumsfeld was not responsible for that, whatever his actual faults may have been.

[clarice]

Wait, I;ve got it .Shinseki was fired at Cheney's "behest"

[in_awe]

Rove...I see the evil machinations of Karl Rove here...

/sarc

[Ranger]

The main issue between Shinseki and Rumsfeld was trasnforming the Army into a more mobile force to deal with smaller contigency operations. Shinseki wanted to keep the force heavy (and hard to deploy) to fight "conventional" mid-intensity conflicts. Rumsfeld believed that there would be fewer "conventional" conflicts in the future, and more "low intesity" operations dealing with peacekeeping/peace enforcement and/or counter insugencies. Given what we have faced in Afgahnistand and Iraq over the last 5 years you can decide for yourself who was right and who was wrong on those points.

[Sue]

Ranger,

you can decide for yourself who was right

Rumsfeld.

[Jeff]

I take it that Jeff supports the surge--right?

As a fact of the matter, can there be any doubt that in a place like Iraq, at a purely military level, you can do more with more people?

It's a good question whether Rumsfeld could have succeeded with Shinseki's numbers. Probably not, because the utter failure at planning probably would not have been made right by more forces. There's also the larger question, which I believe Tom has touched on, of the extent to which the Bush administration's failures in Iraq have been failures of execution, or if they could not have succeeded because the whole idea was a mistake.

[bgates]

he was only publicly humiliated by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for a disagreement about the appropriate force levels for Iraq, right

Did the humiliation involve a Senator saying his thoughts on appropriate force levels required a "willing suspension of disbelief," a Senator saying the war he was fighting was already lost, or the one-time paper of record running a full-page ad accusing him of betraying the country?

And I keep forgetting. Remind me again who was right?
Here's a handy mnemonic for that question, Jeff: It's always us, never you.

[Bill in AZ]

Jeff, this is a rhetorical post - it answers itself. It's like it doesn't even exist. Actually I don't even know why there are so many responses to it, much less the first response.

[Foo Bar]

So, unless Rumsfeld knee-capped him in April 2002 in anticipation of some unpleasantness over Iraq in 2003, it is hard to make the cause-effect link between Shinseki's Senate testimony and his treatment by Rumsfeld

Maybe Rumsfeld didn't kneecap Shinseki because of Shinseki's public testimony, but it is possible that Rumsfeld undercut him because of his private estimate of the number of troops needed for an Iraq invasion. From the National Review:

In November 2001, Rumsfeld asked Shinseki what it would take to defeat Iraq. Shinseki assured him it would take a huge number of troops — a number, in fact, that actually exceeded the active-duty strength of the entire Army

[Foo Bar]

In other words, it is possible that, in TM's words, "Rumsfeld knee-capped him in April 2002 in anticipation of some unpleasantness over Iraq in 2003".

[Jeff]

more "low intesity" operations dealing with peacekeeping

Hey ranger, could you point me to the documentary evidence of Rumsfeld speaking positively specifically of U.S. forces' role in peacekeeping operations before the Iraq war? Thanks.

[Jeff]

Oh and by the way ranger, Office for Stability Operations in the Pentagon? Totally marginalized in the run-up to Iraq. Sidelined. Cut out.

[Pofarmer]

As a fact of the matter, can there be any doubt that in a place like Iraq, at a purely military level, you can do more with more people?

Tell it to the Soviets who were in Afghanistan.

Tell it to the Soviets who are in Chechnya now.

Office for Stability Operations in the Pentagon?

Probably becuase it was about as useful as the State Dept, which wanted the Gig in Iraq.

[Other Tom]

"Rumsfeld asked Shinseki what it would take to defeat Iraq."

It took two armored divisions three weeks. You got a problem with that, Jeff? And what about Rumsfeld "firing" Shinseki? Should we consider that contention withdrawn now?

I love all these clowns now talking about failures of "planning," as if the right plan makes for a perfect outcome, and anything else must be the result of poor planning. How about the FDR/Truman planning for postwar Germany? "Hey, here's an idea--let's order Ike to stop moving east, so the Soviets can conquer part of Germany. And Berlin? Heck, we'll just divide it into four zones, and even though they're inside the Soviet area, what the hell, we'll work it all out later." It was all an unmitigated disaster, with dire consequences lasting to this day, but you don't hear a lot of pussified carping about poor planning in that instance. Wonder why.

Saps like Jeff and Foo Bar are creatures of the modern journalistic tendency to assume that anytime shit happens in a war, the president must be at fault. Back when we were winning wars clumsily and at huge cost, we didn't have dunces like this whining after the fact. We've come a long way...

[Rick Ballard]

OT,

Better rent a pneumatic hammer and get a number of extra bits. Basalt's not easy to crack.

[Pofarmer]

I take it Jeff doesn't use Google.

Google Rumsfeld Transformation.

Got this Pithy little tome from January 2002.

http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=183

[Other Tom]

With the nation engaged in a quite desperate struggle, with people's lives on the line every day both abroad and at home, it takes a very special kind of low turd to continue this whining, puling, caterwauling refrain about how such-and-such an item should have been "planned" differently five years ago.

The hell with these losers. They shame themselves every time they speak.

[Topsecretk9]

it takes a very special kind of low turd to continue this whining, puling, caterwauling refrain about how such-and-such an item should have been "planned" differently five years ago.

they were whining and swatting away black helicopters about the secret war planning office in the pentagon basement before the war.

Takes a special kind of patriotic only to Democratic politics turd to whine now about any aspect of a war that Democrats overwhelmingly voted for.

[Mike Huggins]

And, and, and that Chosin Reservoir advance should have been planned better...

And, and that Iwo Jima invasion should have been planned better....

And, and that advance of the 77th Division into the Argonne Forest should have been planned better...

And, and that Chancellorsville battle should have been planned better...

[Foo Bar]

Other Tom,

Saps like Jeff and Foo Bar

I will stipulate that I am a sap, a dunce, etc.

That said, TM's suggestion that "more likely, Shinseki's public rupture was a symptom of his already diminished status" seems dubious. The National Review piece I linked above says that in 2001, before the April '02 announcement of Shinseki's successor, Shinseki was already giving very high troop estimates. Shinseki's "public rupture" looks like it was pretty consistent with what he had already been saying before he became a "castrato".

[Bill in AZ]

General Washington screwed up pretty much every aspect of his war - thanks to a pussified congress not much different than the one we have today, who would not fund, feed, or supply the troops. And he patiently listened to those simpering whiners much the same as Bush does today - and he still won.

[Pofarmer]

The National Review piece I linked above says that in 2001, before the April '02 announcement of Shinseki's successor, Shinseki was already giving very high troop estimates.

You may not have noticed but the Modus operandi during the Clinton adminstration was in response to the question "How many troops will it take?" the answer was "More than we have." It was institutional. Rumsfeld really pissed off the institution. It was very evident in Zinni's testimony about the Cole bombing.

[Jeff]

And what about Rumsfeld "firing" Shinseki? Should we consider that contention withdrawn now?

Um, no. I took that to be the uncontentious part. Indeed, I take it Tom agrees with that characterization. In a very unusual move, Rumsfeld identified Shinseki's replacement long before the end of Shinseki's term, and let it be known widely enough that it made its way to the Washington Post. And there were genuine disagreements. I took Tom now, as in the past, to accept that Rumsfeld fired Shinseki. Tom's relatively minor disagreement is with the contention that Rumsfeld fired Shinseki in 2003 in response to Shinseki's public testimony before Congress. I clearly agree with Tom on that one. Shinseki had been reduced by Rumsfeld to lame duck status long before that.

[Topsecretk9]

Mike Huggins and Bill in AZ

You Silly's. In democrat/progressive politics there is no history, only snippets of selective history they like that get atention - erasers and ear plugs take care of the rest.

I'm with OTom

The hell with these losers. They shame themselves every time they speak.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I will stipulate that I am a sap, a dunce, etc.

Okay, so stipulated.

Now, explain to me why, if Shinseki was right, we proceeded to defeat, conquer, and occupy Iraq for five years with only about 150,000 troops instead of Shinseki's estimate, and did it with, so far, casualties comparable to a bad week in WWII?

[Jeff]

Got this Pithy little tome from January 2002.

Poor pofarmer, that's a really good and interesting speech by Rumsfeld. But it makes my point, not yours. I was not, needless to say, questioning the indisputable fact that Rumsfeld was an advocate of military transformation, and that this had to do with assymetric threats and "unconventional" warfare. I was questioning ranger's characteristically tactical and factually challenged assertion that an affirmation of peacekeeping was a real part of Rumsfeld's transformative vision. And I see nothing whatsoever in the link you gave to suggest that Rumsfeld offered such an affirmation of peacekeeping as a positive part of low intensity warfare or what have you.

I'd also be curious about counterinsurgency, because Rumsfeld definitely does not rank high in the usual annals of COIN fame. But I feel less confident about his views on that than on peacekeeping. ranger, care to enlighten us on Rumsfeld as fan of COIN?

[Foo Bar]

To clarify my previous point:

TM says

Shinseki was unhappy about Rumsfeld's plans for a smaller Army and got pushed to one side; he then complained that the Army presence in Iraq was not heavy enough, and Rumsfeld continued to disagree.

In fact, Shinseki's Iraq troop requirement estimates first came in '01, before getting pushed aside.

TM asks

OK, so in what sense was Kerry correct? My guess - in the sense that Bush was a Republican

Kerry's debate quote was:

General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, told him he was going to need several hundred thousand. And guess what? They retired General Shinseki for telling him that.

"Told him", not "testified"- that could easily refer to Shinseki's counsel given to Rumsfeld (and Bush indirectly) in November '01 rather than the testimony in early '03. And if "retired" is not quite correct, there was at least the subsequent "castration".

Charlie:
Now, explain to me why, if Shinseki was right, we proceeded ...

If it were true that Shinseki's Iraq predictions look so bad in hindsight, I would suggest that it would not be of such interest to attempt to debunk the idea that they resulted in him getting pushed aside by Rumsfeld.

[Topsecretk9]

The hell with these losers. They shame themselves every time they speak.

Notice, he comes from a nest of sites that do not allow alternative view comments to "challenge" like Jeff enjoys here on ANY topic or else if they do they are deleted.

Feel no compunction to humor liberal fascists who have strict rules controlling dialogue but venture out to open conservative sites when they please.

Jeff thinks condensation is a feature of his, that he can't be debated in his comfort zone of tightly controlled dialogue is a bug.

[kim]

What Jeff does is perfectly logical. Rewriting history makes it a hell of a lot easier to both understand and teach political science. You need a lean, mean, thinking machine. You can't go to class with the army of facts that you have.
===========================

[kim]

And for sure, the future is not going to act like it oughta unless you plan it adequately.
========================

[Jane]

Oh dear, I wake up to find a space alien with an X gene, has infiltrated, and Jeff is back. Are these things related?

[michaelt]

So Shinseki wanted an invasion force that:
- was larger than the whole active-duty Army
- was much larger than what was needed to have a successful invasion
- was much larger than the force we have successfully prosecuting "the surge"

Tell me again how he was right?

[Other Tom]

General McClellan always needed more troops, too. And unlike Shinseki, he was fired.

Shinseki retired. Period.

[Sue]

I didn't know that Shinseki said it would take more troops than we had. No wonder Rumsfeld told him to take a hike.

I'll concede the point that Rumsfeld fired him. He should have done so sooner, apparently. The man was senile.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

If it were true that Shinseki's Iraq predictions look so bad in hindsight, I would suggest that it would not be of such interest to attempt to debunk the idea that they resulted in him getting pushed aside by Rumsfeld.

Why the subjunctive, Foo Bar? (Oh, look it up.) We know Shinseki's predictions look bad in hindsight. Nor do I find it hard to imagine that Shinseki was "pushed aside" --- told that his retirement was expected at the end of his first term and he wouldn't be re-appointed --- when it became clear that he wasn't meeting Rumsfeld's expectations. Since we know that his predictions were wrong, it would suggest that Rumsfeld was right in doing so. The possibility exists that Rumsfeld made one mistake dealing with him by not relieving him immediately instead of letting him wait out his term, but Shinseki had served honorably if not brilliantly, and he apparently did continue to do his duty, so Rumsfeld was being nice.

But it doesn't take a Kripke semantics to understand the temporal proposition "he was told he was on the way out long before he tesitfied in Congress, so that couldn't have been what caused him to be retired."

[MayBee]

It was Wesley Clark that was fired, right?

[Sue]

Another view, supporting your statement: Clark was fired by Secretary of Defense William Cohen shortly after the war ended­and, just to make sure Clark didn't try to make an end-run, the chiefs leaked the firing to the Washington Post.

http://wais.stanford.edu/Individuals/individual_generalclark.htm>Why yes, yes he was.

And it was Clinton's administration that leaked the firing to the WaPo. ::grin::

[Sue]

From the same link above...

Here is another quote from the New York Times that supports your position: "One lingering question about General Clark's résumé is why his NATO tour came to an abrupt end in 2000. He was not fired by the White House, as some accounts have suggested. Rather, former officials of the Clinton administration say, his tour was cut short by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Gen. H. Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were still smarting over their differences with the NATO commander."

Differences between the Sec of Defense and the commander. Where have I heard that before?

[narciso]

Mixing apples & oranges, it's kind of remarkable how these memes seem to stay together. Shinseki, who's previous achievements were issuing Chinese made berets to all troops; instead of just the rangers, and the management of Task Force
Hawk in Albania; had the Swedes negotiation had fallen through; was a very conventional
artilleryman. Schoomaker, who was Rumsfeld's
pick, had been chief of Special Forces Command; who resigned probably in part to the sidelining of Able Danger. Had
experience along with Boykin, in uncon-ventional environments like Iran, Colombia, Somalia, et al. He understood better than Shinseki, what the operational demands were for this type of operation.They also were assigned to domestic 'counterinsurgency' like Waco where they provided logistical support for Reno's signature operation in law enforcement. People who argue for a markedly larger force, forget howcumbersome,
and even more vulnerable to supply line interrruptions that would be;(the Jessica Lynch problem,) They also forget the example of the most likely putting us in the British force in the first expedition to Mesopotamia, back in 1914; where more died cause of medical condition than due to combat casualties. The rest were decimated by the Turks, and then held captive for nearly a year. It took nearly three years to get to Baghdad; where they made the signature error of not fundamentally changing the prevailing power structure; which would lead to the Shia 'thawra' uprising of 1920. They favored the Pachachi and Gailani clans over the increasing more
majority Shia Sadrs and the Chalabi clans.
They marginalized the Kurds demands; ironically making it possible for the discovery of oil in Kirkuk in 1927; 13 years
after the latest wag says they went in Iraq to find. Gailani would repay the favor by forming the fascist Golden Square movement
and trying to bring a'little touch of Vichy
to Baghdad'.

This is of a par with the idea that Rumsfeld withdrew troops from Afghanistan to Iraq; around the time of the Tora Bora
offensive. Troops that wouldn't be deployed
there for another year and a half. They fault us for using the Northern Alliance's Tadjiks and Hazaras, who know the treacherous territory, rather than US special forces, and the TRODPINT teams who really didn't.

[Cecil Turner]

If it were true that Shinseki's Iraq predictions look so bad in hindsight . . .

What "predictions"? We didn't have enough troops to put "several hundred thousand" in at any one time (look at the wailing over "surging" to a temporary 168,000), and Shinseki well knew it. The number was indeed intended to be read as "more than we have," and it wasn't Shinseki's call. His job was force provider, not combatant commander, and he was appropriately taken to task for talking out of school.

In a very unusual move, Rumsfeld identified Shinseki's replacement long before the end of Shinseki's term, and let it be known widely enough that it made its way to the Washington Post.

Here's a guy in Shinseki's camp (Army Sec White) telling the story with a presumably sympathetic twist:

I don't think he personally meant to insult the chief of staff. They were in the business of trying to lay out, as they should have, a long-term slate. ... Somebody leaked that either to the Post or the Times, and it was in the paper, and the damage was done.

There was nothing "unusual" in the long-term slate being populated . . . what was unusual was that it leaked. But there's little evidence to suggest it was intentional (other than the usual difficulty in keeping interesting stuff secret).

People who argue for a markedly larger force . . .

Either don't understand manpower, logistics, or both.

[MikeS]

And I keep forgetting. Remind me again who was right?

It seems that 160,000 troops was the magic number to stabilize Iraq. So it's kinda like the question about what the meaning of is is.

If you think "several hundred thousand" means 160,000 then Gen. Shinseki was right. If you think that 160,000 is substantially less than "several hundred thousand," then the General was wrong.

[Cecil Turner]

Back to the more current event, Max Boot had a great take on Barnett's Fallon article:

The picture that emerges of the admiral -- "The Man Between War and Peace," as the overwrought headline has it -- is not as flattering as intended. "He's standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war [with Iran]," Barnett writes. And:"While Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III ... it's left to Fallon -- and apparently Fallon alone -- to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: 'This constant drumbeat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful.

Max is right on. The idea that a serving officer's duty is to work to circumvent his orders is indefensible. It's even more stark when orders are from the civilian leadership (National Command Authority). And whether it's a Patton or MacArthur trying to start a war--or some well-intentioned soul trying to avert one--that's not his decision to make. I'm particularly unimpressed with Barnett, a former Marine, who ought to know better.

Here's another take from a fellow Jarhead, Mack Owens (and though I don't approve of his cutesy "McFallon" title, his bottom line appears sound):

While reasonable people can disagree over the wisdom of the Bush administration's policy regarding Iraq, the really troubling aspect of this article is that it reveals the extent to which a combatant commander had taken it on himself to develop and disseminate policy independently of the president. This flies in the face of the American practice of civil-military relations, going back to the American Revolution.

[narciso]

Of course, one recalls, that Mr. White, was excoriated on the basis of some allegation from crack 'afficionado' Jason Leopold for his role in Enron, than after he was dismissed; it was for speaking truth to power. The real point is that most of the dissenters around Kerry and now Obama, really have no good track record to speak of. Had the Swede's back channel to the Serbs had gone the other way; Wesley Clark would have faced a disaster somewhere around Pristina. Zinni as CENTCOM chief did
nothing of any import regarding Al Queda and/or Saddam. McPeak was responsible for the bulemic purge of the air force in the early 90s; Gen. Hoar (who was flagged from higher promotions, because of his position on didt and women and the military) was Zinni's predecessor and what did he do. Adm. Fallon, really doesn't know of the track record of the IRGC 'Quds force'; the
counterpart to the Republican Guard and the PLA; and its most popular alumni,
Ahmadinejad,

[boris]

the really troubling aspect of this article is that it reveals the extent to which a combatant commander had taken it on himself to develop and disseminate policy independently of the president

So DOD joins DOS and CIA in the BDS koolaid club.

[Cecil Turner]

As long as this sort of thing remains a firing offense (however the departure is engineered), the corrective action appears to be working. You'd think all the civil libertarians who scream bloody murder over the perfectly sensible idea of spying on our enemies in wartime would be a little more concerned about military officers disregarding civilian control. But for all the claims of "what would you think if the shoe was on the other foot," they seem to be remarkably willing to accept long-term degradations in democracy for short-term political gain.

[boris]

My guess would be that Jeff and Fubird consider military generals with BDS to have tenured positions with complete freedom of expression and dissent (short of unPC comments like Larry Summers of course).

[Foo Bar]

But it doesn't take a Kripke semantics to understand the temporal proposition "he was told he was on the way out long before he tesitfied in Congress, so that couldn't have been what caused him to be retired."

Yes, I conceded in my first comment that his public testimony in early '03 could not have caused his April '02 "castration".

That said, TM is portraying the timeline as:

(1)Shinseki/Rumsfeld clash over other matters
(2) Shinseki suffers adverse career consequences in April '02 (undermined by early announcement of successor).
(3) Shinseki voices high estimate of required troop levels for Iraq only after (2).

This timeline is wrong. Shinseki was giving his views on troop levels in November '01, before (2) above.

Furthermore, TM suggests Kerry had absolutely no basis to suggest that Shinseki suffered adverse career consequences as a result of his Iraq troop estimate since (according to TM) there's no evidence his troop estimate came before April '02, when in fact his troop estimate did come before April '02. Furthermore, Kerry's language in the debate was specifically about telling Bush rather than testifying, which is consistent with that National Review's reporting about what Shinseki was saying, privately, in November '01.

[MayBee]

FooBar- is there any evidence to suggest that Shinseki was good at his job, and that he should have been encouraged not to retire?

[Cecil Turner]

Furthermore, Kerry's language in the debate was specifically about telling Bush rather than testifying . . .

Oh, please. Nobody cared about Shinseki's private estimates (nor listened to them much . . . again, force requirements weren't his job). His public pronouncements were a different matter. Your own article made the same point:

Instead of finding ways to support the president's policies, Shinseki has repeatedly resorted to obstruction and delay. Last week, he did something much worse. [emphasis added]

It also made the point that the initial clash came much earlier over RMA and the political games played by Shinseki and White:

Rumsfeld won the Crusader battle, but left White and Shinseki there, effectively rewarding their political chicanery. White and Shinseki have been at odds with so much that the administration is trying to do, it's hard to understand why they still have their jobs. [emphasis added]

Shinseki's stupid force estimates (more than we could deploy for Afghanistan; more than we had for Iraq) are worthy of eye rolls . . . his political backbiting should've gotten him fired.

[Ranger]

I was questioning ranger's characteristically tactical and factually challenged assertion that an affirmation of peacekeeping was a real part of Rumsfeld's transformative vision.

Posted by: Jeff | March 13, 2008 at 01:26 AM

Well, maybe you should look at the term peacekeeping in the contexted I used it:

Rumsfeld believed that there would be fewer "conventional" conflicts in the future, and more "low intesity" operations dealing with peacekeeping/peace enforcement and/or counter insugencies.

I put peacekeeping in at the low end of the "low intensity" conflict spectrum, not as an issue that Rumsfeld looked at a a singular priority. But somehow you mangage do cut my statement down to this singluar clause:

more "low intesity" operations dealing with peacekeeping

Compare my entire sentence to your own sentence previous to your statement about my statement.

I was not, needless to say, questioning the indisputable fact that Rumsfeld was an advocate of military transformation, and that this had to do with assymetric threats and "unconventional" warfare.

It seems you needed to "Dowdefy" my statement to make if fit your particular spin, when, in fact, you basically admitted that what I said about Rumsfeld was accurate.

Also remember that in 2001 Rumsfeld's DoD had two major foreign deployments underway, Bosnia and Kosovo, both mainly Army missions and both Peacekeeping/Peace enforcement. I think Rumsfeld's demand that the Army actually start planning its force structire around the missions it was actually being asked to conduct was only radcial to the upper level leadership of the pentagon.

[Jeff]

Ranger

No, I did not mischaracterize what I was asking for evidence for. I did not assert or suggest that peacekeeping was the sum total of Rumsfeld's vision. I want evidence from you that peacekeeping was a real part - part, got it? - of Rumsfeld's transformative vision. I would like evidence of Rumsfeld's belief that peacekeeping was an appropriate part of his vision of our participation in low intensity conflicts. For that matter, I'd like to know the evidence of Rumsfeld's discussion of counterinsurgency. I'm not saying the evidence is not there, though I admit I've been unable to find it. I'd like to see it.

So I'd like to see the evidence of Rumsfeld's perspective on peacekeeping/peace enforcement and counterinsurgency, which I take it you are asserting was a key part of his transformative vision.

[Ranger]

For that matter, I'd like to know the evidence of Rumsfeld's discussion of counterinsurgency.

Well Jeff, why don't I just use your own quote from above:

I was not, needless to say, questioning the indisputable fact that Rumsfeld was an advocate of military transformation, and that this had to do with assymetric threats and "unconventional" warfare.

and point out that "unconventioal" warfare is simply another term for Low Intensity Conflict, and thus, any demand that the Army transform itself to deal better with "unconventioal" warfare is a demand that it transform itself to better conduct peacekeeping/peace enforcement and counter insugency operations.

As to peacekeeping/peace enforcement specificly, was Rumsfeld going to just pretend he didn't have a two major operations of those type underway? Regardless of Rumsfeld's personal feeling about peacekeeping (which I am unaware of personally), as Sec Def he was in charge of executing two such missions on a daily basis with an Army that was not well equipted for those missions. The heavy forces could not sustain the op-tempo that these missions required, and the light forces simply didn't have the vehicles to produce any op-tempo for them. The demand that the Army develop a force structure that was capable of conducting the missions that the Army was faced with actually doing in the real world seems highly understandable, regardless of how politically advisable he felt those missions were.

[kim]

Can you imagine asking a question in Jeff's class?
===============================

[Cecil Turner]

I want evidence from you that peacekeeping was a real part - part, got it? - of Rumsfeld's transformative vision.

More nitpicky nonsense. While it's true that expectations of lower intensity conflicts and desires for a more agile force structure were part of the vision, the bottom line is that the Army was so out of step with reality that they were too heavy even to fight a Fulda Gap scenario. Our strategic lift capacity has been declining for decades, and yet the forces got heavier and heavier. It made no sense whatsoever to keep buying more 70-ton main battle tanks when no plausible war scenario would last long enough for us to ship the ones we had to the conflict zone. 90-ton howitzers are even dumber. That's the main argument over RMA, and Rumsfeld was exactly correct, White and Shinseki, wrong. Picking one word ("peacekeeping") out of a phrase designed to emphasize the LIC aspect of warfare misses the point, but even the LIC argument misses the big picture.

Moreover, their back door machinations to get support from friendly congressmen (e.g., Inouye and Levin) after their pet projects got trimmed were inappropriate and should've gotten 'em fired. They were the ones playing politics, not their DOD superiors who had every right to expect their cooperation. The Army brass fought tooth and nail to keep force structure, when they should've been integrating Air Force fire support and reorganizing to make their own forces more agile. Shinseki's feather-bedding on the heavy expensive stuff was part and parcel of his world view, but hardly the stuff of grand vision. The latter-day attempt to make this into some sort of telling truth to power makes as much sense as trying to lift 50,000 men into Afghanistan. And either Shinseki's too dumb to read a map, or intentionally inflating estimates in order to garner funding from the budgeteers (not that it's all that rare, but neither is it terribly attractive or laudable).

[Bill in AZ]

I have a drama queen - sky is falling, we're all gonna die - dude like Shinseki in my group too. Sometimes it's easier to ignore them than get rid of them.

[Rick Ballard]

"Can you imagine asking a question in Jeff's class?"

Can you imagine the number of students leaving his classes more ignorant than when they entered? Day after day, week after week, year after year.

There are bound to be some who don't recognize fraud when it's in front of them as well. I wonder how much they have to pay to have their shoes tied in the morning after receiving this type of "education"?

[clarice]

Why do you suppose the media is so kind and generous to those officers who insist the proper strength for an operation exceeds what is available or (logistically available) and fights for weapons that we could never transport to a battlefield even assuming that we will ever see that kind of (Fulda Pass) battlefield again?

The thing answers itself, doesn't it?

[Other Tom]

Here's Mackubin Owens on McClellan and Lincoln, a propos Fallon:

"McClellan and many of his favored subordinates disagreed with many of Lincoln's policies, and indeed may have attempted to sabotage them. McClellan pursued the war he wanted to fight--one that would end in a negotiated peace--rather than the one his commander in chief wanted him to fight. The behavior of McClellan and his subordinates led Lincoln to worry that his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation might trigger a military coup."

AS for Jeff's query as formulated above, I can't imagine any informed military or defense official speaking in such terms, and thus I think it unlikely he will find whatever it is he says he's looking for.

[Other Tom]

What sort of class does this poor fellow teach?

[kim]

Political science. Surprised?
=================

[boris]

Political science = jumbo shrimp.

[boris]

Ranger: "Rumsfeld believed that there would be fewer "conventional" conflicts in the future, and more "low intesity" operations dealing with peacekeeping/peace enforcement and/or counter insugencies."

Jeff is apparently attempting to employ something akin to postmodern deconstructive nitpickery against an opinion expressed by Ranger. Nobody needs to offer documentation that Rumsfeld ever stated a desire for "peacekeeping" force structure in order to express the opinion that the force restructure Rumsfeld actually accomplished was better suited to that task.

Who would be in a better position to express an informed opinion on that question, Jeff or Cecil and Ranger? In my opinion peacekeeping would fall in the general category of low intensity conflitcs that the Rumsfeld restructuring was apparently intended to address. There, same basic claim as Ranger's so let Jeff now claim I need to document it.

[Foo Bar]

Nobody cared about Shinseki's private estimates (nor listened to them much

The National Review article has Rumsfeld asking Shinseki (not Shinseki sticking his nose in where it didn't belong) regarding troop estimates, so the idea that nobody cared about Shinseki's privately voiced opinion doesn't make much sense. That idea also doesn't fit very well with the notion that Shinseki's estimate was designed to prevent us from invading- that would be completely futile if Shinseki's estimate didn't carry any weight.

Maybee:

FooBar- is there any evidence to suggest that Shinseki was good at his job, and that he should have been encouraged not to retire?

Well, Shinseki was a former commander of the peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, which was more successful in keeping peace than the post-invasion operation in Iraq has been. Shinseki has said in his Senate testimony that Iraq had "the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems". Wolfowitz, on the other hand, implied that peacekeeping in Bosnia was harder than it would be in Iraq because there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq (!?!?!- well, that's what he said). Wolfowitz was rewarded for his insight into foreign cultures by being put in charge of the World Bank. Shinseki, who Abizaid and Lindsey Graham acknowledged much later as being right that more troops were needed, got marginalized.

[boris]

Oooh Lindsey Graham!

Lindsay is big McCain backer. McCain dislikes Rumsfeld and favored more troops.

Doubt Shinseki was forced to retire just because he gave Rumsfeld a larger than feasible troop estimate.

[Cecil Turner]

The National Review article has Rumsfeld asking Shinseki (not Shinseki sticking his nose in where it didn't belong) regarding troop estimates, so the idea that nobody cared about Shinseki's privately voiced opinion doesn't make much sense.

I see we've switched from Kerry's campaign claims back to the article (or at least the one line in it that you like). I don't know if Rumsfeld asked Shinseki about that or not--not sure why he would, except for idle conversation, since Shinseki's job was to provide forces requested by the combatant commander (CentCom), not determine requirements himself--but there's zero evidence it was a bone of contention prior to Shinseki's (obviously inappropriate) testimony.

Your position appears to be a rather vague claim that Rumsfeld coulda been trying to "settle scores" with Shinseki for a privately voiced estimate on a matter not in his job description several months before it became a public embarassment. And you're holding to that interpretation in the face of a far more rational and simpler one (their public clash over RMA and Crusader). Surely you'd admit that doesn't make much sense, either, eh?