Quote:
Originally Posted by A. Crowley
n February 2003, Gen. Eric Shinseki famously predicted that “several hundred thousand” troops would be needed for post-war hostilities in Iraq. According to documents recently released by the Pentagon in response to The New York Times’s expose on its propaganda program, however, Donald Rumsfeld claimed in a 2006 briefing that the reason why he did not support a larger invasion force was because commanders did not request it:
RUMSFELD: Now, it turns out he [Shinkseki] was right. The commanders–you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that’s what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand.
Q: Yes, they were already in queue.
RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they’d wanted them, but they didn’t, so life goes on.
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This is a prime example of just how scandalous this administration really is. When persuading Congress to go to war with Iraq, President Bush assured that it would be happening under the most carefully thought out plans. However, when Shinseki proposed to Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops, the White House went ahead with their predetermined smaller force that they thought was adequate enough. They simply dismissed a military EXPERT'S idea, instead of considering and debating the EXPERT'S opinion. On top of this, other military generals saw what happened to Shinseki, and didn't want to voice their disagreement with the administration in fear of being undercut like Shinseki was.
For this administration to think that they know more about military strategies than Shinseki and the majority of the Pentagon that shared the same views as him, is absolutely absurd.